What the heck is ABT5?

I have a dirty little secret…

I never wanted to be a wedding planner. It was never something that was on my radar. The series of events that led me to this industry is, to be honest, not very exciting, inspiring, or important, really, so I’ll skip that part. What is important is that I was one of those women who had absolutely no business starting a wedding planning company. None. I had no professional or academic background in event planning. I had zero experience in design, catering, or hospitality. Absolutely nothing in my personal or professional history lent itself to wedding planning.

In short, I was an outsider. To this day, I still kinda feel like one. I never have, and never will, consider myself a planner who “eats, sleeps, and breathes weddings”. I eat, sleep, and breathe vanilla lattes, cheese (in all its forms), and window shopping in stores where I absolutely can’t afford to actually buy anything.

Nevertheless, I started my business, A Bride’s Ally, and it grew faster than I ever dared to dream for something I originally considered a side hustle. In the many years I’ve been a wedding planner/consultant/coordinator, I’ve watched wedding planning take perfectly lovely people and turn them into Pinterest-obsessed (in the bad way), overwhelmed, anxiety-ridden, FOMO-paranoid crazy people.

Thanks to social media, the advent of sites like Pinterest and Etsy, and the proliferation of more wedding-based blogs than I can count, couples are truly free to plan weddings that are individual and unique, which is amazing. But, that freedom comes with a dark side that many don’t expect and have trouble navigating. Observing all this through the eyes of an industry outsider brought me to A Bride’s Top Fives (ABT5). In short, I’m taking wedding planning points and boiling them down to the top five most important things you need to know about each. In addition, I’ll also have “bonus” posts that tackle more sensitive/taboo topics (like how to deal with bridesmaid regret, manage a vendor that’s doing a bad job, or cancel your wedding outright).

The simplicity of mindset I want to promote can be applied to all couples at all budgets. This isn’t about simplicity of event – even those with large guests counts and complex design concepts can do without a lot of the wedding planning white noise out there.

I’m hoping this will allow couples to more easily strip away the non-essential information overload that trips up so many people when planning their wedding. Even better, a lot of the concepts I’ll be discussing can easily be transferred to other areas of life.

Here’s to simplicity of mindset in wedding planning and life!

Love,
Victoria