I Dos and Dont's: Wedding Education for the Modern Bride + Groom | The Planning Phase of Your Engagement + 2 Downloadable Workbooks
/ANDI COMPTON
Andi Compton, our Business Director, planned her own birthday parties as a girl, spent hours making wedding collages as a teenager, and worked at the largest bridal store on the West Coast during college. She eventually answered the call to turn her organization and creativity into a business, Now That’s a Party, wherein she coordinates weddings primarily for Catholic couples.
Over the upcoming months, Andi will be here to guide you through your planning and share her insights from the wedding industry, from engagement all the way through newlywed life. Consider it an open invitation to ask your wedding planning questions in the comments and on our social media!
Last month, Andi introduced an alternative to a month-by-month wedding planning timeline: the Phase Approach. Here, she breaks down for you the first phase, Planning, and has created two sets of worksheets to help you envision exactly what you'd like for your Nuptial Mass and reception. They're beautifully designed, comprehensive resources we're thrilled to offer you!
Once the excitement of early engagement starts to wane, and more and more people begin asking, “When is the wedding?” it’s time to seriously begin praying and discerning what your wedding day will be like, and how it will give glory to God.
Every couple has different expectations about their wedding day. Some imagine an intimate gathering of their nearest and dearest at a swanky hotel or art gallery, dining on rich food and dancing until midnight. Others picture everyone they’ve ever known at a casual backyard reception in the afternoon, eating a simple buffet and delicious cake, with lawn games and minimal dancing while they sit and talk to guests.
The Planning Phase is the time to sit and talk with all the parties who will be contributing to the wedding about their expectations. While, yes, the day is to celebrate the bride and groom, parents are often investing large sums of money into the day. Their opinions deserve to be respectfully heard.
You would be surprised at how many parents, dads included, have a vision for their child’s wedding. During my own planning, I was surprised to find my husband’s family has a completely different approach to weddings than what my family was accustomed to, and my future in-laws had never been to a wedding like the one we were planning. It was also crazy to find out my dad had always thought I’d wear a ball gown (he knows me!) and that my mom always dreamed of elaborate white flowers for me.
So before you meet with any vendors, and even before you start getting numbers together to set a budget, dream big! I’ve created a free downloadable workbook for you that’s full of questions and lots of space for you to write down answers, draw or paste pictures; whatever you need to really dig deep and get to the heart of wedding planning.
The workbook below is designed to guide conversations with your fiancé and families. It has plenty of room for notes and cutting and pasting images from magazines or the internet. So please, feel free to get messy with it and get all your thoughts on paper.
We’ve also created a checklist for this Planning Phase that begins upon engagement and generally ends about 6-9 months before the wedding, depending on your timeline. I've aimed to make it comprehensive, but feel free to cross off items that don't apply to you and to add your own to-dos to the list!
Download the Planning Phase resources below:
About the Author: Andi Compton is Spoken Bride's Business Director. She is the owner of Now That's a Party where she coordinates weddings, fundraising galas, and social events. Read more