Rhode Island wedding paper products, Parrott Design Studio, is featured in our new series, How To Say ‘I Do’: A Ceremony Planning Series.  We thought that wedding ceremonies deserved a series of their own since they are sometimes lost behind the focus of the reception.  This weekly series will feature my Kate Parker Wedding vendors sharing advice and tips on wedding ceremonies.  After all, saying ‘I do’ to the one you love is the whole point of having a wedding in the first place!  This week, Parrott Design Studio gives some tips, advice, and insight into ceremony programs.  This advice from Parrott Design Studio is also featured in the Expert Advice posts on my Kate Parker Wedding.

Wedding Programs, by nature of their contents, are a last minute item.  Your ceremony is your wedding.  Most people {myself completely included} tend to focus on the reception as the wedding, but the reason you have a reception is to celebrate your ceremony where you committed your lives to each other in front of family & friends.  Therefore it is understandable that you are working on the details of your ceremony until the last minute possible because it is so important.  By the time you are done planning your ceremony you may be thinking, program? Do I really need a program?  In a short word, yes.

You want your guests to feel welcomed & involved with your wedding.  The more involved they feel, the better experience they will have.  Wedding programs allow your guests to follow the ceremony, understand what is happening & why, & it is a keepsake of the day.  Programs come in all shapes & sizes & there is no set format on what your program should look like.  It should work for you & your ceremony & reflect you as a couple.  The key “ingredients” for a program include: your full names, wedding date, city, state, & location of the ceremony, the order of the wedding ceremony including musical selections & the composers & performers, the readings, the source or author, & the readers, wedding party names & their relation to you, your officiant’s name, a thank you note to your parents & guests, & a brief explanation of traditions, rituals, & ethic customs for both religious & secular ceremonies.  You may also wish to honor those who have passed or could not join you by including a memorial.

Below are a few of my favorite programs I have designed along with a description of why the format was chosen for that particular ceremony.

Shelley & Willie needed a booklet-style program for their wedding ceremony, which was an elegant affair at the Cosmos Club.  The program continued the theme of their invitations & included all of the key ceremony information listed above.  They also included an explanation of their wedding ceremony as it was a specific kind & they included why various parts of the ceremony were important.  The cover of the program was gocco screen printed & the interior pages were digitally printed.

Jess & Jay were married in July in Maine.  Knowing the church where their ceremony was taking place had no air conditioning, we knew a fan was the perfect program.  We continued the theme of their wedding invitations using the same design elements, typefaces, & colors.  As it was a religious ceremony, the contents included the readings & readers, along with all the music selections on one side.  On the other side the wedding party & a note to the guests was included.  The fans were digitally printed & hand-assembled.

Gisela & Richard had an art-deco inspired wedding Miami.  Gisela wanted to keep the program small {4.5 x 6.26″} but wanted to fit a lot of information so we used every inch of available space.  The front featured the same peonies from her invitation. The inside had the ceremony & wedding party information on the left side & their three readings on the right side so guests could follow along.  The back included a note to guests & a memorial section.  There were not additional pages so the ribbon served a more decorative rather than functional purpose, unlike the first program where the ribbon actually held the interior pages in.  This entire program was gocco screen printed.

Larissa & Brennan had a religious ceremony similar to Jess & Jay’s.  We decided to go with a simple folded card {5 x 7″}, also continuing the theme of their wedding invitations.  The inside pages held the ceremony information on the left side & the wedding party information along with their note to guests on the right side.  This entire program was also gocco screen printed.

Going back to my opening sentence – wedding programs are a last minute item.  These four programs were designed, printed, assembled, & delivered all under two weeks before the big day.  That first one arrived the day before the ceremony {which is actually cutting it just a bit too close for my comfort!}.  With that being said, beautiful & practical programs are completely possible, even if you think you do not have enough time!

Rhode Island wedding paper products, Parrott Design Studio, is a member of my Kate Parker Wedding your online wedding resource guide geared towards directing couples to quality vendors based on their price range and state.