The Founders of 42 North Just Started a New Wedding-Planning Company for the Millennial Couple
With Mavinhouse Events, the planning process is more straightforward than ever before.
A wedding planned by Mavinhouse Events. / Photo by Lindsay Vaan
A brand-new wedding-planning company has landed on the scene, and the ladies behind the magic are keeping it real. Founded by Britt Cole and Francie Dorman of Ipswich-based planning-and-design firm 42 North, Mavinhouse Events brings together a team of four talented young planners based in Boston, Newport, and New York City with a perspective fit for the modern millennial couple. “[Millennials] put emphasis on how they spend their money a little bit differently. They want to know what they’re getting and why and what the value is behind it,” Dorman explains.
After the two planners began thinking about just how rare it was to find precise rates publicized on planners’ websites, they decided to, as Cole says, “take some of the guesswork out” of the process. Their new company offers three packages that range from planning and design services that begin the moment after your partner pops the question to coordination throughout the final stages of planning. On the Mavinhouse Events website, which launches Monday, couples will be able to see a full breakdown of precisely what all three plans include as well as the flat fee for each.
In addition to promising a more transparent planning process, the ladies at Mavinhouse have also homed in on using technology to increase accessibility and efficiency for clients. This begins even before a couple chooses Mavinhouse, when they’ll be able to access the team’s calendar online and book a 15-minute consultation through the website without having to place a call or send an email. “Some of the feedback we’ve gotten is that everybody is very busy,” Cole says. “And [finding a planner] is very time consuming.” Once a couple signs on with a Mavinhouse planner, Dorman also says her team is “interacting a lot more with [them] directly,” which makes the planning process more collaborative. The couple and the planner will stay on the same page by communicating and sharing information through a cloud-based system that allows both parties to send messages to each other and keep everything from inspiration boards to invoices organized. “Millennials have grown up doing all these group-effort projects throughout their whole lives, and they’re not really looking for a planner to come in and take over and just deliver a wedding,” Dorman says.
The Mavinhouse Events planning team. / Courtesy of Mavinhouse Events
The final reason Dorman and Cole founded Mavinhouse Events? To provide a mentorship opportunity to fresh planning talent. “We wanted to usher in a new generation of women who are rising up within the industry,” Cole says. “We’ve really recognized the power of women coming together.” The two wanted to use their experience to help their four young planners—who come from event-design, catering-management, and international corporate-planning backgrounds—thrive in new careers. Clients will be partnered with one of the four women based on how their logistical needs, as well as their style and personality, jive with the planner’s own background. Couples also have the opportunity to speak to more than one planner before choosing a match because, finding the right planner is “not as much a science as it is a magic,” as Dorman says. “Britt and I have always said there is a planner for everybody. Clients should feel safe and like they’re going have fun and like they really click with the person they’re working with, because you really get down to the nitty gritty when you’re planning a wedding.”
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