Vendor Week 2021 | Stress-Free Catholic Wedding Programs
/EMILY CONSTANCE
This February 20-27 is our annual Vendor Week: days dedicated to showcasing the best of the Catholic wedding industry through Spoken Bride’s blog content, podcast interviews, and social media. Everyday this week, we will share wisdom and expertise of some of our talented Vendors to help you in your wedding planning.
If you are recently engaged, we invite you to browse the Spoken Bride Vendor Guide, specifically designed to connect brides and grooms with planners, photographers, florists, artisans, and more who share the same faith and bring a distinctively Catholic outlook to their client experience.
PHOTOGRAPHY: EMILY CONSTANCE PHOTOGRAPHY
There are so many little details when it comes to planning a wedding.
As a wedding photographer, I had some idea what to expect, but it was so different being on the ‘bride’ side of things instead of ‘vendor’ side of things.
One of the often overlooked, but important pieces for a Catholic wedding is the program. Here are some tips I learned during my own wedding planning experience to ensure that this is one detail you won’t stress about!
Start Early
When it came to my wedding programs, I had planned to create them in Photoshop with gorgeous metallic fonts and floral designs printed on special paper to really create that WOW factor. But in reality, I waited until the last minute so I thought I was going to have to just eliminate the programs all together.
With the stress around planning a wedding, wedding programs might not be on the top of your to-do list. But since they are so important, especially with helping non-Catholic wedding guests understand and follow your ceremony, I’d recommend not leaving them until the last minute.
Enlist the help of family and friends
Instead of forgoing a program, my mom came to the rescue! She designed and assembled all 200 of my wedding programs with the help of my dad. I couldn’t have done it without them!
You can easily delegate the task of designing, printing, and/or assembling wedding programs to family members and friends.
Design first, print later
If I were to plan a wedding again today, I would start the design process for my programs earlier to give myself time to create something beautiful and beneficial to my guests. Then I would print the programs closer to the wedding to allow for any last minute changes.
Find the right template
One of the roadblocks I ran into to was - What exactly do you put in a Catholic wedding ceremony program? There are plenty of non-religious program templates on Etsy and Pinterest. But I wanted our program to reflect our faith and be easy to follow for all of our non-Catholic guests.
My mom purchased blank wedding programs and designed them in the word editor on her computer. You can also buy Catholic-specific wedding program templates to make sure that your program has everything your guests need to enter into the beauty of your wedding mass.
About the Author: Emily Constance is a Catholic wedding photographer serving Tulsa, OK and surrounding areas with 10 years of experience. She loves her faith and uses her knowledge to help guide Catholic couples both professionally and personally through their special day. She loves capturing the joy that radiates from couples, as well as the timelessness and beauty of the Sacrament of Marriage.