While wedding planning is sometimes hard, living together can oftentimes be harder. No matter how much you love the other person, there are challenges to moving in together. You have to learn to work together in new ways, whether it’s a new standard of cleanliness or a new aesthetic feel to your living space, good communication becomes vital.

Ideally, your wedding day will reflect the love between you and your partner. But sometimes, the focus on love gets lost in the shoulds and shouldn’ts that come with traditional wedding planning.

Throughout wedding planning, it’s important not only to remember your love for your partner but also the love you have for friends and family. After all, your wedding is also a day to celebrate that love with friends and family.

In weddings and in life, sometimes it's really hard to do what you know is right in your heart.

If anyone knows about navigating internal conflict with grace and authenticity, it’s Alea Lovely. She’s faced everything from relationship problems in her first marriage to leaving a career she loved but no longer served her.

Alea entered the wedding industry as a photographer but moved on to become an energy coach and the host of the Spiritual Shit podcast. She helps create space for folks to heal themselves emotionally and lead authentic lives from the heart.

It probably goes without saying that you want an amazing wedding, right? But what if you’re feeling more pain than joy when it comes to the big day?

Let me assure you that experiencing both positive and negative emotions during the wedding planning process and even on your wedding day is incredibly common.

Weddings are emotional. Not just because of the emotions that come when you say, “I Do,” or the rush of emotions that may come from a cherished heirloom given as a gift, or even the emotions you may feel when you find your perfect wedding day attire.

Did you know that prior to starting Enneagram and Coffee, Sarajane Case was a wedding and boudoir photographer? Long fascinated by people, she used her camera to get to know and showcase people’s unique personalities. Eventually, she realized that she cared more about making meaningful connections with people than actually taking photos.

You’re getting married - congratulations! For most couples, the foundation of their wedding planning journey is the budget. Some couples think that their first defense against an extended budget is to keep the wedding planning process DIY. But there are a lot of savings that a wedding planner can offer that can help couples save money while also creating the wedding of their dreams.

Trae Bodge is a shopping expert with a passion for saving people money. As a regular contributor to national publications like CNBC and Inside Edition as well as monthly “Best Buy” segments on local stations in New York and Washington D.C., Trae lives and breathes finances and budgets.

Last month I had the privilege of partnering with WeddingPro to plan their New York City vendor social – made extra special since it was WeddingPro’s debut event here. (For those of you that missed the news, WeddingPro is the new baby of The Knot Pro and Wedding Wire Edu.) In addition to making sure our venue, Union Park Events, was dressed to impress, I wanted to throw one heck of a fun party for my fellow wedding vendors. We were in the midst of the wedding season so the mid-September event was the perfect occasion to have some fun and mingle!

Jane Mosbacher Morris is on a mission to help people use their purchasing power to change the world. During her time working for the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Counterterrorism, Jane saw first hand how the “power of the purse” impacted women in developing countries. She saw women transformed and empowered by their ability to earn their own wages. Wanting to get involved and help connect these women with ethically-minded consumers, she started TO THE MARKET to offer a resource for ethical purchases and to educate and raise awareness about social and environmental justice issues around the world. .

When Kirsten Palladino sat down to start planning her own wedding she did not see her or her partner in any of the mainstream wedding resources available to her. So, they decided to do something about it and co-founded Equally Wed to combat the heteronormative bias in the wedding industry all while offering inclusive planning guides, vendor lists, and a place where couples can get real inspiration from real LBGTQ+ weddings.

Different worldviews can affect how different people feel about and experience different situations. During wedding planning, everything from food selections to whether or not to follow certain religious traditions can become a minefield of microaggressions.

Every couple deserves to be treated with compassion, respect and dignity throughout the wedding planning process. I invited Pooja Kothari of Boundless Awareness to have a Colorful Conversation about unconscious bias and the dynamics of planning a wedding.

Holly Gray wouldn’t describe herself as a typical wedding planner. She’s bright and bubbly but she also she tells it like it is. And Holly isn’t looking for couples who describe themselves as typical. Through her wedding planning company in Los Angeles, Anything But Gray Events, Holly works with couples on their unique ideas for their wedding… even when their loved ones don’t share their vision.

Wedding planning doesn't have to be stressful. It should be a fun time to reconnect with all of your loved ones in anticipation of tying the knot.

But to make sure the process stays manageable, there are a few easy things you can do. In this interview, we discussed how meditation, digging in to your beliefs, and working on your communication skills can make your wedding planning process go smoothly.

This Colorful Conversation features Shirin Eskandani, former opera singer and founder of Wholehearted Coaching.

You’re planning a wedding and you’re so excited to bring so many of your friends and family into one place to celebrate with one hell of a party. It should be fun, right? Yet somehow you find yourself constantly stressed out. To make matters worse, everyone around you is acting weird. Once you start considering your friends’ and family’s opinions, things can quickly get even more stressful and complicated.

Wedding planning is stressful enough. It’s a big event with lots of people and a seemingly impossible number of details to manage. Throw in the expectation that you’ll look your best on your wedding day (and feel great throughout the entire wedding planning process) and you can be left feeling overwhelmed at best and full of shame at worst.

Over the years (and through the process of planning many weddings), I’ve come to know that planning a wedding is much more than budgets, details, and guest lists. It’s also about families, relationships, and, oftentimes, a few inner struggles.

In case you missed the news, last week I was FINALLY (after close to a year!) able to reveal a styled shoot I produced with Kellogg’s NYC that was featured in ALL SIXTEEN regional issues of The Knot magazine.

The holidays might be over, but I’m not ready to give up the festivities just yet. So today I’m recapping a holiday party I had the privilege of planning for The Knot and Allure Bridals back in late November. Geared towards engaged couples, “Admire and Be Inspired” was equal parts cocktail party and wedding design inspiration, and every detail was beautifully captured by Petronella Photography.

Roses are red, violets are blue. On June 15, 2018, Hannah and Michael said “I do.” This wow-worthy wedding at Brooklyn’s 501 Union had a vibe centered around color (it’s no wonder why I absolutely adore these two!), and the vibrant palette matched the happy couple’s personalities.