Wedding Tips: Getting and Staying Organized

A lot goes into planning a wedding. You and your partner are dealing with multiple vendors to try and make your day as close to perfect as possible. So how do you keep it all straight when you've never planned an event this large (even if it's a small wedding) before? Hiring a wedding coordinator is an easy way to have someone keep track of the decisions you've both made, but sometimes that's just not in the budget. So what do us #brokegirls use? Microsoft Excel. Yup, it's that simple.

At the moment I have four tabs going for all of the vendors we've dealt with so far. My very first page is actually our current guest list. In the first column is each guests name, I do have every single person listed separately since I want to keep track of every persons response and their food choice. My next column is for RSVPs, which will be filled in once the responses start to come in. The next few columns are food choice, allergies, address, email address, plus one, and song choice (we're going to leave a line for requests on the invitation). I also have families who live at the same address grouped together by color so it's easier for me to see how many people are located at one address. 

The first part:

The second part:

My next tab is for the venue. I didn't actually start this spreadsheet until after we chose our venue, so if you're starting this before yours will probably look a little different. Our venue also includes a lot, so with this are the options that are included with our package, such as food, cake, and flowers. In the first column I have venue where I have information like ceremony site, weather backup, reception site, flower colors, table cloth and napkin options. The next column is for payments made, how much and when. Then the next few columns are about food options: hors D'Oeuvres, entrees, sides, dessert, cupcake flavors (because we're doing cupcakes instead of a cake), and bar.

Since I've added tabs when I started researching vendors, my next one is photographer. For me this is one of the most important pieces because what comes of this will last for years to come. My columns are: name of company, cost of package (most companies have a few packages, so I only listed the one I was most interested in), travel fee, how many photographers, hours of coverage, how much for an additional photographer, how much for a photobooth, will I own the pictures, how many prints are included, is an album included, how many pictures are in the album, is there an online portal, is video included/how much to add, is an engagement session included/how much to add, and lastly additional for anything random they added or things I may be interested in adding.

Now at this point, we do still have a few vendors to book. Our next major one is a DJ and Officiant, so that will be next tabs. Happy planning brides!