Staying organized while wedding planning is no small achievement. It can be a physically and mentally taxing job, which may explain why so many couples hire a professional wedding planner.
However, by utilizing a few clever organization strategies, you can complete your planning without losing your sanity.
Ways to Stay Organized
Go digital.
Although wedding vendors still choose to use paper contracts, wedding planning binders have become outdated. A more efficient way to keep track of invoices, contracts, and other important documents is by storing them on iCloud or Google Drive.
By doing so, you’ll have access to the files from your smartphone anytime. If you don’t have access to a scanner, you can upload papers using a mobile app.
Don’t go overboard with Pinterest.
This can be a treasure trove of ideas for cake design, table centerpieces, invitations and other things for your wedding. Using Pinterest, you can collect your favorite photos by creating boards for each wedding planning category. Things such as flower arrangements, specialty cocktails, and hair and makeup.
But you need to narrow down each board to just six entries. This will also give decorators, florists, photographers, and other vendors a better understanding of your vision for the wedding by viewing your Pinterest boards.
Collect guest addresses quickly and easily.
Instead of spending hours calling and texting wedding guests to get their mailing addresses, you can save time by utilizing a website that creates a customized link that you can email to your guests.
This link permits them to add their mailing information directly into a digital address book and export the addresses to Excel. This is a great feature when you consider that many wedding invitation companies ask that couples send addresses in a spreadsheet format.
Using Email to Stay Organized
Create an email account specifically for wedding-related messages.
Create an email account that’s used strictly for wedding planning items such as email communication with vendors.
Having one inbox exclusively dedicated to this project will save you both time and unwelcome stress. You can take this strategy one step further by creating specific folders in the email account related to your design elements and wedding vendors, so you can file and access all correspondence quickly.
Create your seating chart online.
Trying to decide where everyone is going to sit can be challenging, especially when planning a larger wedding. One way to make the process easier is by creating an online seating plan.
There are websites that offer a seating-arrangement tool that allows you to upload a customized floor plan or select from a wide variety of table arrangements. Some websites permit you to record the meal information for each guest, thereby providing you a seating chart that you can provide for your caterer.
Set up automated vendor payments.
Many photographers, bands, florists, caterers, and other wedding vendors utilize a fee schedule. Using this, couples will pay a deposit upfront and then pay the balance due closer to the wedding. But when you’re finalizing the wedding menu and organizing dress alterations, among many other wedding planning tasks, it can be easy to forget when payments are due.
Instead of setting reminders on your calendar and risking the possibility of late payments, you can give vendors permission to keep your bank account or credit card information on file to process payments when they’re due.
Most vendors offer this option because it ensures they’ll be paid on time. Keep in mind that some vendors will charge an additional fee for processing credit card payments. So determine in advance if there are any surcharges and change your payment method if needed.
Make an inventory checklist for your wedding day.
After putting in months of wedding planning, the big day is finally here. It’s a happy occasion, but there are still a lot of moving pieces of the puzzle that need to be addressed to make everything run smoothly.
Must-have to Stay Organized
To keep everything moving along, it helps to create a day-of checklist. This must show what supplies you need to bring along. The list must include the responsible person for transporting items such as photo booth props, wedding programs, and other items.
We’re here to help you with your wedding planning tasks. Fill out our online contact form or call us at (830) 391-8685. One of our coordinators will get back to you as soon as possible. We look forward to hearing from you and helping you start down your path to the perfect wedding.