Can’t Afford A Wedding Planner? This Is The Next Best Thing

The crash course in weddings you didn't know you needed #Sponsored

When I was planning my wedding, I knew one thing for sure: we couldn’t afford to hire a planner, and so my only option was to do the best I could to learn what I needed to know. I bought all the relevant books and spent a lot of lunch hours reading wedding blogs, but when the time came, I still felt like I was totally flying by the seat of my pants. This was largely because—as we discovered in last week’s open thread with a professional wedding planner—wedding planning questions can get… specific. And while the combo of the #APWplanner and, well, APW is great for all those big picture questions (I wish both of those resources had been around/as robust when I got married), they’re not going to help you figure out the small stuff, like how to prevent people from coming up to you during portraits so their unplanned hugs don’t mean you miss the entire cocktail hour. (An actual experience from my otherwise totally awesome wedding.)

But unlike me, who only had Google and a mounting sense of anxiety, you have access to a treasure trove of professional wisdom and accompanying support in the form of Feel the Wedding Day Love. What is that, you ask? Well, it’s a step-by-step online wedding planning program that will show you exactly how to pull all the details of a wedding together to create a wedding day plan that will result in you getting to relax and enjoy yourself. It’s like having access to a virtual wedding planner on an as-needed basis plus her secret stash of planning materials—for only $99.

laughing bride and groom standing in front of open door to warmly lit reception

Feel the Wedding Day Love was created by Caitlin Frauton, an APW-reader-turned-professional-wedding-planner precisely so no couple has to wing it on their wedding day, regardless of whether they can afford to hire a professional planner or coordinator:

I found APW when I was planning my own wedding back in 2013. It was my go-to spot for wedding planning info, as it provided the most sane advice I could find anywhere. I did not have a wedding planner for my budget wedding, so I know what it’s like to try to plan this huge, super important event, while learning how this whole wedding thing works as you go. It’s not something you necessarily want to wing!

Feel the Wedding Day Love picks up where APW leaves off for any wedding without a wedding planner. From the moment I started my wedding coordination business, I knew I wanted to share everything I learned about planning budget-friendly weddings with as many couples as possible. I’d go home from each wedding and document what worked well versus things I would do differently in the future. Over three years and dozens of weddings, I tweaked and fine-tuned all my obsessively created materials and until it became a step-by-step system that other couples could replicate themselves.

I believe professional wedding planning advice should be accessible to everyone regardless of budget, and my goal is for couples who are having weddings on smaller budgets to have access to the customized, professional help that’s traditionally been reserved for couples with larger wedding budgets.

Can I get an amen?! ✨🙏✨

bride with temporary butterfly tattoo

Here’s a peek at what you get when you sign up for Feel the Wedding Day Love, but you should probably just head right here to see all the details, because there’s a lot of good stuff.

  • Monthly Q&A calls: On these calls you can submit your wedding planning questions and get answers specifically tailored to the circumstances of your wedding. All of these calls are recorded, and timestamped so you can quickly refer to the spots that are applicable to your situation.
  • Online Wedding Planning Resource Library: Tried and true advice for budget-friendly weddings organized by the stages of wedding planning. This info is a great complement to what you’ve already found on APW, and it is especially perfect for folks who are in the early stages of planning and still choosing their venue and vendors.
  • video lessons and highly detailed checklists: These cover all the details that wedding planners know, and organize them into an airtight game plan for your wedding day that your vendors and helpers can follow. This info is priceless no matter where you are at in the planning process—from years or months out to two weeks out.
  • Plus other neat bonuses: Along with all of the above, Feel the Wedding Day Love wants to make sure you’re a hundred percent good to go for your wedding day. (We’re big fans of the wedding rehearsal templates that guide you through that heartfelt ceremony with your wedding party before your wedding day.)

vintage red and white VW bus with "Photos" sign

There’s an old saying that the world is made up of three types of information:

  1. What You Know You Know: For example, you’ve got your own hair and makeup covered thankyouverymuch.
  2. What You Know You Don’t Know: The questions you know to Google. Like exactly how much booze do you need for 100 guests?
  3. What You Don’t Know You Don’t Know: Say… What do you do when you’re supposed to start your ceremony, but ten percent of your guests are stuck in traffic and texting you because yours is this only number they have? (Another actual event from my own wedding that I never would have anticipated and still have nightmares about six years later.)

It’s #3 where Feel the Wedding Day Love really shines. And by shines I mean saves your ass. As Caitlin says:

We go into the small, nitty-gritty wedding planning details that make a wedding go smoothly and cover them in depth in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format (think dozens of super-detailed checklists and step-by-step videos). How exactly do you figure out your morning-of schedule based on the unique locations of your wedding and the number of people in your wedding party getting ready with you? How exactly do you figure out your bus transportation schedule and make sure everyone actually gets on the bus when they are supposed to? How exactly do you make sure your family and friends who are helping to set up the ceremony and reception spaces know exactly what to do and where to find everything? [Ed. Note: I would have thought to plan out exactly zero of these questions without prompting.]

After using FTWDL, you’ll know you’ve covered everything a professional wedding planner would if they were planning a budget-friendly wedding. Plus Feel the Wedding Day Love allows me to get super specific with budget-friendly advice and to hop on calls with people, ask them follow-up questions in response to their question, and then help them to arrive at the best answer for them.

bride and bridesmaids embracing in a circle

Feel the Wedding Day Love is available for $99 or 3 monthly payments of $39. Let me break that down for you: For the price of skipping one round of takeout per month, you can learn literally everything you will ever need to know in order to put together a totally seamless, stress-free wedding day (and get any unanswered questions answered by a professional wedding planner herself). And probably be so much less stressed that you didn’t need that round of pizza anyway.

Plus when you enroll by February 28, 2018, you can enroll a second person for free (just email Caitlin and mention APW after you sign up). This can be your partner, your maid of honor, your mom, or a friend who is also planning a budget-friendly wedding.

Oh, and there’s a 100% money back guarantee too, so there is really nothing to lose, but I have a feeling you’ll be as satisfied as APW reader Ciarra, who used it to help coordinate her own orchard meets wine bar wedding.

bride and groom embracing in front of a lake

If you’re at the point in your wedding planning journey where you feel like you’re spending far too much time and energy learning how to plan a wedding, rather than actually planning your damn wedding, then Feel the Wedding Day Love is perfect for you. Head on over to the Feel the Wedding Day Love website for more details, check out the FAQs, read the glowing praise from previous graduates, take a sneak peek at course materials, and reach out to Caitlin herself if you have any questions.

Enroll in FEEL THE WEDDING DAY LOVE by February 28, 2018 to enroll a second person for free! EMAIL CAITLIN to redeem.

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