Wedding Coordinator = Needle in a haystack?

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I had a similar experience when searching for a photographer. FH and I attended several meetings with potential photographers but there were things that I found to be red flags, ranging from forgetting our names to stopping to deal with kids in the background to just giving off a vibe that we didn't really mesh with. Perhaps some of it is just due to the crazy season that vendors have just had to deal with.
Keep searching! It'll be well worth it when you find the right person and feel totally secure in your decision.

A lot of that does seem unreasonable to me like paying for overnight stay when they're only 40 minutes away, but a non-refundable retainer seems standard among all vendors. Just ask if you postpone if they will honor it as a credit to your new date. My friend is a wedding planner and I know she features a lot of her clients' wedding photography on her site and I'm sure it's in the contract somewhere. Within the wedding industry there is a lot of collaboration but I would also assume that the planner and photographer would work that out amongst themselves but you would need to make the introduction and still be involved. Those are good questions to ask. I guess would have assumed a day of coordinator would be harder to find than a full wedding planner. I could be wrong but most probably offer full services and to just hire someone to coordinate the one day you'd have to charge prices that would make it worth it. My friend doesn't offer day of coordination because it takes way more time than just the one day - they offer "month of" coordination. I'd also almost equate it to florists not wanting you to use them only for some services then DIY the rest yourself because their name will be associated with something that doesn't accurately represent them. If you really just want someone to help keep everything on time and not help plan the event maybe you have a really organized bridesmaid you can ask or go on thumbtack or something like that to see if you can find someone offering management or organizational skills. You could also ask your venue for suggestions or if they have staff that will help. Our day of coordinator and her team work for the venue. She's who originally answered my inquiry and I signed the paperwork with and most event venues have someone who manages their events that can help.

Some of the stuff that irks you really doesn't seem unreasonable at all to me; perhaps not ideal, but pretty common within the industry. Non-refundable deposits are pretty much the norm. We had six vendors for our wedding and only one of them - the bartending service - offered any sort of refund for a deposit, and that was a partial refund only. All (except the hair salon, which I am no longer using) transferred our deposit to a new date though, with no additional fees.

It's also pretty common to ask for use of photos for promotion of the services. That's written into the contract for our venue/caterer and I ran it by our photographer who had no issue with it, but appreciated me clearing it with her. If vendors didn't ask for use of photos, the only photos they would have of their events would be from stylized shoots, which aren't an accurate depiction of a real wedding, so it makes sense that vendors ask for this. However the photographer owns the copyright of the images, so you should always check with them before supplying the images to a third party or using them for anything other than personal use. You actually don't have the authority to share images beyond your personal circle, or to grant someone else permission to use those images to promote their business.

Staying at the venue does seem like overkill when she lives pretty close by, but it may be to ensure everything is cleaned up properly after your event. I would imagine the need to stay over is probably more of a case-by-case basis thing, but I could see her just having it in her contract to cover her bases. If none of this was discussed over your Zoom call, I would ask if you can have a quick call with her to clarify some questions/concerns about the contract. It's pretty normal for vendors and clients to not always be 100% on the same page and need to modify contracts in some cases. Our wedding is 50 guests and some of the things typically in contracts don't apply to our wedding because of how small it is. It doesn't hurt to ask before writing her off completely.

As for the coordinator you said was unprofessional, I really hope it was for more than having to be a mom while taking a phone call. Women take on most of the labor with parenting and I have some coworkers right now who routinely have their young children pop into a virtual work meeting because they are managing being a parent and a working professional at the same time (and kids schedules and routines are still screwy because of the pandemic). I understand the ideal is a distraction free call with a potential client, but you don't know her situation and dismissing her as a possibility just because she had to make sure her three year old wasn't burning down the house or something seems unfair. It's totally fine if you just didn't get a good vibe from her otherwise, but I find it irksome when women get judged for trying to multitask parenting and working. If a dad was doing the same thing many would say how wonderful he is for prioritizing his children, but when a woman does it she's somehow unprofessional.

It's worthwhile to negotiate with your coordinators (or any vendor) if you like them but there's one aspect of the contract that you don't like. One wedding planner I talked to but didn't go with threw into the countract that she'd be paid for being the officiant as well! Overall, the wedding planner we chose we're happy with.

We've negotiated weird things with other vendors though. A/V is included through our venue so I dug my heels in with the DJ not to double pay for the use of their A/V as well. My photographer wanted to add a travel fee for going to our hotel for the "get ready pictures" but I really don't want any photos without make up and it's not worth it to me for that extra amount. I don't care how common it is in weddings these days to have get ready photos.

I wonder if in your case, she wrote the contract expecting it to be negotiated down (like instead of paying for assistant's lodging, you'd compromise and pay for her hotel room). Not sure. It's also a seller's market for weddings right now as there are 2 years of weddings packed into one wedding season. Good luck to you!