3 Wedding Decisions You Can Make Right Now for FREE!

Hey, there lovebirds! 💍✨ So, you just got engaged? Cue the happy dance! 🎉 But now that the excitement is settling in, you might be thinking, "Where do we even start?!" The good news? You don’t have to spend a dime to start planning your dream wedding! In fact, there are 3 big wedding decisions you can make right now, absolutely FREE. Let’s dive in!

1. Determine Your Wedding Size 🏰 vs. 🏡

Before you even think about venues or caterers, it helps to decide how big (or intimate) your wedding will be. Do you want to create a party-like atmosphere with 200+ guests? Or are you dreaming of a more intimate gathering with just your closest family and friends? Figuring this out now will make everything else—venue, budget, invitations—SO much easier later on. So grab your fiancé, make a list, and start visualizing your perfect guest count! For an in depth look at making this decision see here.

Consider what kind of vibe you want (party like or intimate atmosphere) when choosing your wedding size

If you’re needing more support making your wedding guest list, be sure to grab the wedding guest list template below!

2. Choose Your Wedding Party 👯‍♀️💙

Now that you know how many guests you want at your event, you can move on to determining your wedding party. Who do you want standing by your side when you say, "I do"? Your wedding party plays a huge role in your big day (and the fun leading up to it!), so this is a great decision to make early. Whether you’re going traditional party or mixing it up your wedding crew, the choice is yours! When selecting your wedding party, focus on quality over quantity. Imagine your 5th, 10th, 20th wedding anniversary, would you still be in touch with those in your wedding party? For my own wedding, we only had our siblings in the wedding party because we felt the most connected and supported by them. If you have a lot of close friends and really want them all in the wedding, go for it, but remember there’s nothing wrong with keeping it small or skipping the wedding party concept all together. You do you🥂

It’s okay to have a small wedding party of close friends or family

3. Select Your Color Palette 🎨✨

Choosing your wedding colors early sets the tone for everything—décor, wedding party attire, flowers, and even invitations! Are you feeling classic with timeless neutrals? Or maybe bold and vibrant hues speak to your personality? Pinterest is your BFF here! Start pinning color schemes you love, and soon you’ll see a pattern emerge. The best part? It costs zero dollars to dream up a color palette that makes your heart happy! For some color palette inspo see the GHD Pinterest board (jewel tones, pink & red, and purple) and this blog post (includes a FREE wedding color quiz).

Color Palette Inspiration

Ready to Get Started? 💕

Making these 3 decisions now will give you a strong foundation for planning your big day—and the best part? It won’t cost you a thing to get started! So, grab your partner, pour a glass of something fabulous, and start planning. You’ve got this! 🥂✨

Need more wedding planning tips? Be sure to sign up for the GHD Weekly Wedding email for extra wedding planning and design support ✨

Kickstart Your Wedding Design: Choose the Perfect Color Palette 🎨

Last week we talked a little bit about wedding themes (see here), but maybe you’re feeling like you have no idea where to start with your wedding design and the thought of deciding on a theme is just too much for you right now.

That’s okay, I totally get it. Wedding planning overwhelm is REAL!

As a former DIY bride myself, I know exactly how stressful wedding design can be (especially if you’ve never done it before). If you’re newly engaged and just starting your wedding design journey, I have 2 things to say:

1. CONGRATULATIONS! This is such an exciting moment in your love story and I encourage you and your partner to take time to celebrate your engagement. There’s no rule (and even if there was, I would encourage you to break it) saying you have to start designing and planning your wedding the second you get engaged. Take your time and enjoy this magical time.

2. If you are ready to start designing your wedding and landing on a theme is too overwhelming (see here for some wedding theme inspo) - I encourage you to start with wedding colors.

Choosing wedding colors is easier than you may think. There are a lot of clues in your surrounding environment that will help point to your ideal wedding color palette. Once you choose your wedding colors, it will help serve as a creative foundation for all aspects of your wedding design. From invitations to decor, attire to florals, your chosen palette becomes the invisible string that ties every element together.

I love me some momentum, especially when it comes to making decisions. You’ll soon find once you get that wedding planning momentum going, you’ll want to keep going.

Here's why selecting wedding colors is so important and how it can help jumpstart your wedding design process:

Wedding Colors Define the Mood and Style

Your wedding colors are more than just a combination of shades you love; they reflect the mood and style you want to convey. Are you dreaming of a romantic and elegant celebration? Soft pastels or muted tones like blush pink, sage green, and ivory can evoke that feeling. Prefer something bold and modern? Jewel tones like emerald, burgundy, or navy can make a powerful statement. By choosing your colors, you’re creating the first building block of the atmosphere you want to create for your big day.

A Guide for Design Decisions

With so many choices to make, having a color palette in place simplifies decision-making. Whether you're selecting linens, centerpieces, wedding party attire, or even the icing color for your cake, your chosen colors will guide you. Without a defined palette, it’s easy to feel lost in a sea of options. Your colors act as an anchor, streamlining the process and ensuring all elements of your wedding feel cohesive. One of my favorite mood boards I’ve made tonight was a fictional wedding between Avril Lavigne and Elle Woods (see below).

Inspiration for Theme and Decor

Choosing your colors can also inspire the overall theme or aesthetic of your wedding. For example, a palette of soft blues, greens, and neutrals might inspire a coastal theme, while shades of burnt orange, rust, and terracotta are perfect for a fall or bohemian vibe. Once you’ve nailed down your colors, it’s easier to build a cohesive look and determine an overall theme that reflects your vision as a couple.

A Personal Touch to Your Day

Your wedding colors are a reflection of your personal taste and relationship. Maybe you’ve chosen hues that remind you of your favorite season, the flowers from your first date, your favorite travel destination as a couple, or even your home decor. Adding this personal touch not only makes your wedding feel more meaningful (no cookie cutter weddings here!) but also makes the design process more enjoyable.

If you’re feeling stuck with color selection, take the FREE GHD Wedding Color Quiz to help jumpstart your wedding color palette decision. 

Take the wedding color quiz

Tips for Choosing the Perfect Colors

1. Start with Inspiration: Look for inspiration in your everyday life. What colors make you happy? Are there tones in your wardrobe, home, or favorite artwork that you’re naturally drawn to?

2. Consider Your Venue: Your wedding venue plays a huge role in determining what colors will work best. A rustic barn might pair beautifully with earth tones, while a modern ballroom might call for sleek neutrals or metallics.

3. Seasonal Palette: Let the time of year guide you. Pastels are great for spring, vibrant shades work well for summer, earthy tones shine in fall, and rich, deep colors suit winter weddings.

4. Test Combinations: Play around with color swatches and mood boards to see how different shades work together. Get the FREE GHD mood board guide with templates here. For more color inspo, check out this GHD Pinterest (purple wedding, jewel toned wedding, red and pink wedding).

How Wedding Colors Drive Your Design Journey

Once your colors are chosen, you’ll find that many other wedding design decisions will become easier. Your floral arrangements, table settings, invitations, and even lighting can all be designed with your palette in mind. It’s like creating a roadmap for your wedding—giving you a clear direction to follow as you progress in your journey of making your wedding vision a reality.

By starting with your wedding colors, you’re setting the stage for a cohesive and memorable event. It’s a fun and creative way to kickstart your wedding planning journey and ensures that your celebration truly reflects your style and story as a couple. So, grab those swatches, open up that mood board template, raid your closet and home for favorite items, get inspired, and let your wedding colors lead the way!

“Engaged 2 Planning” - Wedding Planning for DIY couples

The moment has finally arrived…my wedding planning course is officially live!

Now I know I’ve only talked about my wedding planning course a little bit recently (see here), but what you might not realize is this idea has been in process since 2016. Yes, you read that right, 2016, as in almost a decade ago - in other words…

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2016 is when I first discovered online courses and the concept of running a virtual business. It was the year I purchased my first online course from, which happened to be right around the time I had my first baby (that’s a lot of firsts in 2016). At night between when this baby went to bed (around 7pm) and when baby got back up to “dream feed” (if you don’t have kids - google it - it’s a whole thing) at 10pm, I would stay up and work on learning about online business. While I was exhausted in a way only a new parent can be, I was energized by this idea of a virtual business. 

Of course life gets in the way sometimes and causes delays and reprioritizing…since 2016 there have been multiple apartments/houses (6 to be exact), multiple jobs, and then baby #2 in 2018. 

Note to viewers babies do not always sleep peacefully - do not be fooled!

When I finally launched GHD in 2019 (3 years after that first online course I took), I spent a year getting it up and running (building socials and my website, doing design giveaways online, having styled shoots, etc.). Then in March of 2020, I launched my first online offerings (4 years after taking that first course). In a cruel trick from the universe, a global pandemic hit at the EXACT same time and everyone was worried about well…not weddings.

Throwback to the original GHD Logo (circa 2019)

In 2021, I returned to the corporate world and shoved my design dreams in the back of my desk drawer (literally, my notebook for all my GHD plans was in my desk). For a while, I thought it was over - my dream would die a slow death (and gather lots of dust) in the back of my desk drawer.

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If you’ve ever met me in real life, you know I’m not one who gives up or lets go easily (relentlessness is one of my most intense qualities - good and bad). Even in my corporate job, I always found ways to infuse design and event planning anywhere and everywhere I could, but I still missed wedding design. Turns out it’s pretty hard to fit color palettes and mood boards into the health care industry.

By December of 2023, I knew I just had to breathe life back into my wedding dreams - even if that meant doing it on the weekends or evenings while working full time. I rebuilt my website (from scratch), started a weekly newsletter (ps you can sign up for that here), launched my blog, and began creating all kinds of freebies (quizzes, guides, PDFs)  to help support couples with their wedding planning and design. All those resources are free to you here!

FREE wedding resources

By fall of 2024, it became very clear to me that for my virtual wedding business and dream of creating a course to ever be more than a “hobby”, I would need to be able to work on it full time.

Then came the doubt (“What if I fail?”), imposter syndrome (“Am I even a designer?”), and reality (“Can I even record a course while my house is undergoing major renovations?”). Oh doubt, hello dear friend.

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Well the universe must have felt bad for being such a punk to me (to all of us) in 2020 and it created a very clear path for me to exit my corporate job and thus here we are.

It only took 9+ years from my original dream to get to this point and honestly I’m okay with that. While it didn’t go how I thought it would originally back in 2016, the journey to this dream has been the exact wild ride I needed.

That’s the thing about life, it always works out the way it’s supposed to in the end (even if it seems like absolutely NOTHING is adding up right on the way there).

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Now that you know a little more about the journey I’ve been on to get to this exact moment, I couldn’t be more thrilled to bring you “Engaged 2 Planning”, the online course to help guide newly engaged couples navigate from their engagement into the wedding planning process. 

More about “Engaged 2 Planning”

This course guides couples through the 3 Key Wedding Planning Decisions they need to make first (before starting on any design elements of their wedding). These key decisions include: wedding size, wedding budget, and wedding date.

Since I’m such a design nut though, I included a bonus module in the course to help determine overall wedding vibe/style, color palettes, and mood board inspiration (including how to make your own wedding mood board!).

Learn more about the course

Features:

-120+ Minutes of Video Instruction

-14+ PDFs & resources including:

• Wedding Budget Tracker

• Money Mindset Activity

• Mood Board Templates

• Color Palette Concepts

• Wedding Vibe Guide

• Wedding Invitation Discount Code

AND MORE!

A MAJOR benefit of this course is the amount of time it saves newly engaged couples who are DIY-ing their wedding planning. From a fellow DIY bride to another, I KNOW exactly how overwhelming and time-consuming planning your own wedding can be. With this course, instead of scouring Instagram, Pinterest, wedding blogs and magazines, everything a couple needs to get started with wedding planning is “gathered here” (see what I did there?), all in one place, for easy access.

The course is a one time $47 payment. I’m putting that out there because I am a fan of transparency and I personally like knowing these sorts of things up front. So there you are, less than $50 bucks (pretty sure the bonus section alone is totally worth the cost of the entire course).

Sneak peak of the course BONUS materials

Not ready to spend the money, but still need help planning? I’ve got you covered. Check out my FREE resources page and snag your copy of the Ultimate wedding planning checklist.

If you’re not getting married, but know someone who is - be sure to share this link with them!

Have questions about the course? I’m here for it! Email me directly at gatheredheredesigns@gmail.com and we can set up time to chat, text, or email.

I am starting this New Year out on a mission to help support all those lovers who made it official during engagement season with getting the wedding planning journey started.

Cheers to your engagement, the wedding planning to come, and dreams realized! I hope to see you in the course soon!

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