Invited: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner

The book does an excellent job in its stated purpose, to combine all the many details of engagements/ weddings/ marriages of today, and the greater perspective of marriage as a sacrament of the Catholic Church. The balance of these two is quite extraordinary, even more so because the more intimate details, and the real priorities for marriage, seem so naturally and thoughtfully presented. The author’s experience as a chastity speaker clearly reflects in honest, faithful, and knowledgeable sections on Catholic morality as it applies to sex and married life. I think that in those areas where any bride (or groom) is looking for some wedding logistic help they will find more than a few practical words of wisdom, even some to answer questions they didn’t even know they should be asking yet.

PSA: If you are a Catholic bride, stop what you are doing now and get yourself a copy of this book.Stephanie Calis has a warm and friendly soul, you can tell from the way she writes.In her brand-spanking-new book Invited: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner, Calis invites (*ahem*) Catholic brides and grooms to make the most of their wedding celebration. Invited does something unique and wonderful that the—literally thousands—of wedding ideas and guides out there on Pinterest and in magazines or secular books simply do not do: it teaches an overwhelmed bride to take a deep breath and thank God for her vocation which is about to begin in the Sacrament of Matrimony.I don’t mean teaches like reading a dictionary or the Catechism. I mean teaches like when you’ve been taking 30 minutes to get to work every day, but one day you carpool with a friend and it only takes 15 minutes because she knows a cool backroad, so now you always take that route. . . ....This book reviewed for the Catholic website "The Holy Ruckus" ---please find my whole review on the site: [...]

I LOVE this book! I originally got it for my cousin when she got engaged without reading it. I then got it for myself when I got engaged! After reading it, I purchased one for my fiancé so we can read it at the same time and talk about it (who doesn’t want a book club with their fiancé?!). We LOVED LOVED LOVED having such an easy to read source for how to make your wedding day such a God-filled day! I have since ordered two for other friends who just got engaged and plan to make it a tradition to get this book for my Catholic friends as engagement presents! 💖

A must read for catholic brides. I read it in 2 nights and am now going back through the chapters as needed. Written in a conversational tone. Thank you for this helpful tool!

Beautifully written but also a lot of humor! I didn't expect to be giggling during this read. Includes a useful checklist and great resources for Catholic couples you won't find on more secular based wedding websites. As a wedding photographer I like giving this book as a gift to Catholic couples. Our weddings are so different from most other religions, so it's helpful to have this upbeat but knowledgeable resource!

I was so excited to get this book because of all the wonderful reviews and the helpful advice it promised. Needless to say I'm beyond disappointed. It just didn't deliver and left me with just as many questions as before, if not more.

I just received this book and my first impression after reading a few of the chapters was something I was not expecting...defensiveness. I got this book because I wanted a wedding planner that I could trust to fully take into account my beliefs represented by the Catholic rite of marriage in it's fullness. I was expecting a full planner that assumed I was already fully on board. Calis managed to make me feel like I was being sold something, she explains the "why" of the beliefs in a way that tries to convince people to follow them. I found this pretty unnecessary- I'm already Catholic and I agree with what she is saying, I didn't need her to sell it to me. I found myself thumbing through the book skipping entire sections because the topic of the chapter was to explain some basic Catholic belief: why you shouldn't cohabitate (yes, I know- beside the point of planning a wedding), or why you should definitely have a wedding mass (yes, I want a full mass, that's why I bought this book), Or why you should focus on the spiritual formation (Yes, of course, I'm Catholic, that's generally how I like my sacraments). This book may be better suited for brides having a Catholic wedding but they are only lukewarm or uninformed about their Catholicism, maybe should be sold as a book for those kinds of folks. For people who are "Catholic and loving it" looking for a celebration of the uniquely Catholic marriage rite, this might not be for you. I found it to be preachy and off-putting. I will update this review if I manage to get through the whole thing with an updated opinion.Got through more of the book and found myself even more put off by the tone. I was sorry that I really didn't like it, I was so excited to have a uniquely Catholic planner. I hope that if you read this book and get a lot out of it that it blesses you greatly. For me, it was not the helpful Catholic planner I hoped for and even worse, it gives off the tone that really gets my goat in the church these days, which is talking down to it's own members.

I just started planning my wedding and my best friend recommended this book. It has been SO helpful! I have no idea what I'm doing and it does such a good job of laying it all out for me.