Wedding planning: Six-session course designed to simplify the process

Most women start dreaming about their wedding day long before they even start dating. But dreaming doesn’t equal planning. After you find your Prince Charming and he pops the question, where do you begin in the planning process?

“A lot of people get overwhelmed with friend and family suggestions,” said Lynda Johnson, operations manager at The Garrett-Bullock House.

While The Garrett-Bullock House offers wedding planning and consulting to brides who use their facility, they are now offering a six-session wedding planning series open to anyone interested.

The series was created to help brides-to-be begin and “simplify the process” of planning their wedding, said Johnson.

To create each session’s theme, Johnson sat down with a couple of newly married brides and asked them what they thought engaged people needed the most help with, she said.

The series is geared toward the newly engaged or anyone needing help planning. The six weekly sessions, which begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday, cover everything from how to choose the date and venue to photography, food, attire, flowers and invitations.

Each session costs $5 and will feature a wedding professional to cover that week’s topic, offering tips and tricks of the wedding industry.

Fran Papenfuss, owner and title-holder of The Cake Lady, will be one of the presenters for the Aug. 24 session on food, cake and alcohol.

Papenfuss will offer tips on how to communicate with cake vendors to get your perfect wedding cake.

“Have ideas,” she stressed. “The more information the bride can give the vendor, the more we can help them.”

Johnson said the biggest benefit of attending these sessions as opposed to searching for the information online is that the people involved know the area.

“This is going to include people locally,” she said. “What you find online doesn’t necessarily apply to this area.”

With interest already building in the upcoming session, Johnson said they hope to hold the series twice a year, one early and one in the summer.

“We really want to simplify the process so it’s not so overwhelming, not so stressful,” said Johnson. “Then they can enjoy (the wedding) more.”

Katie Holland, reporter, can be reached at 706-571-8515