Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner

Rating:
Summary: A planner that helps you remember what's most important
Review: My fiancé and I have been together for nearly eight years. In that time, we've attended and been in more weddings than we can count. While we've loved being part of our friends' celebrations, we've also seen stressed-out grooms and tearful brides, and have heard plenty of, "Our families are making us crazy. This doesn't even seem like our wedding. We should have eloped!" So when we recently decided to marry, that's exactly what we wanted to do.

We are now planning to marry abroad in a tiny, informal civil ceremony, and therefore hardly needed a great big "white wedding" type of planner. But although our ceremony will be small and informal, we want it 1) to go smoothly, and 2) (and most importantly) be meaningful. So, like most brides, I started doing some research. I looked through many wedding planners for tips and suggestions on how to be organized and how to keep the whole process meaningful. Obviously, weddings planners by definition are meant to help you plan, stay on track, be organized, etc., but I didn't get much real help on keeping it meaningful until I got to The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner.

Now, this book covers many practical topics (in fact, many more than my fiancé and I needed for our plans), but I found it very valuable for a different reason: it focused on so much MORE than wedding planning tasks. The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner helps guide you through not only the planning, but also your personal and emotional journey. While I won't be wearing a big poofy white dress or having 200 guests in a church wedding, I'm still on a personal and emotional journey toward marriage--and The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner has helped me along that journey. It addresses the emotions that so many of us go through in preparing to marry and also provides terrific advice on how to incorporate what's really important as you plan.

For example, one suggestion in the book that particularly resonated with me was the idea of writing personal letters to family members and friends before the wedding. What a beautiful way to let these important people know how you have appreciated them, and that you understand things might be different once you are married, but you will continue to cherish their love and support.

The bottom line is this: although many wedding planners can help keep you organized, The Conscious Bride's Wedding Planner goes a step further. It addresses your emotions, your fears and how to incorporate what's most important to you as you plan for your marriage. Thank you, Sheryl Paul, for a terrific wedding resource!

Rating:
Summary: Conscious Bride - An indispensible wedding planner
Review: Sheryl's book is thoughtful and comprehensive. It allows a bride to consider everything in preparation for her wedding; the flowers, the guests, and most importantly, her emotions. The book gives exercises for the bride and her future beloved to use to explore how best to make a wedding that reflects them. As a minister, I will reccomend this wedding planner to all of the couples who work with me as a way to feel truly ready when the day comes to walk down the aisle. I give this book 5 stars!!