how to plan a wedding - our tips to staying organised
So here’s the thing. You’re about to do something you’ve never done before. You’re going to plan an event which will have anything from 8 - 20 suppliers, 50 - 100+ of your nearest and dearest attending, oh and spend approximately 250 hours doing so over the course of 6 - 18 months.
You’ll have family politics to contend with. You’ll become momentarily obsessed by something which right now you probably don’t know exists. Your thumb will hurt from scrolling through Pinterest at 1am. You’re about to enter what is said to be one of the most stressful things you’ll ever do BUT will inevitably end in the BEST day of your life. Ahhhh! Crazy right?
We love weddings and we love helping our couples. Not everyone hires a wedding planner and we get that. But we still want to help those of you who opt to use an on the day coordinator or even those brave souls who go it fully alone.
Here are our top tips to stay ahead of the game
Open a wedding email address that you both have access to. Use this email address as your main point of contact for all vendors so your quotes and conversations are in one place.
File everything. File all the quotes, invoices, receipts agreements, information packs, song lists, product lists, price lists etc. as they’re sent in folders so you can easily check back and find things that you’ll probably forget you were sent in the first place.
Start a budget document - plan out your wedding budget an allocated funds against each key area. Track how much you’ve paid and when you have to pay the rest in your budget document under different columns. Ensure everything adds up so you can see where you’re at as a total spend / total paid / total left to pay point of view.
Break out tasks over the months you have to plan so you’re not trying to do everything at once. Pinterest / Blogs / Magazines all have generic guides on what to do and when so these can be helpful to help you plan out.
Do a WIP document. Set up a file (excel or word) where you have the area e.g. Transport, the supplier and all their contact details, the status of that booking and next steps. This way when you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed you can clearly organise your thoughts and know what you need to do next.
Allocate jobs. Normally there’s one person who takes the lead as a couple but to make sure it’s not all one sided allocate jobs to both people and agreed time frames to get those things organised. If you have family who want to help give them jobs as well. Something like finding a cake maker or getting quotes can be a nice easy job to allocate to an excited family member and takes something off your list.
Set up an Inso folder on your Instagram account and save images in here that you like so you can look back and find things easily.
Start your run sheet early.
Allocate time on and off from wedding planning. We call this ‘Wedmin time’. By allocating chunks of time to doing things you’ll stop yourself from feeling like you’re just doing it all the time. Likewise if it’s starting to feel a bit much allocate a weekend off and do stuff without planning and ban yourself from talking about the wedding.
Hire a planner - or at least chat to a planner to understand how they can help you. Overt plug here but hiring a wedding planner means you don’t really need to do any of these things as your wedding planner will do them all for you. And you know having a professional means that everything will be in control and managed to perfection.
We hope that helped. So good luck and enjoy your wedding planning!
All feeling a bit much? It’s never too late to bring in a wedding planner or wedding coordinator to help. Contact us for an obligation consultation to discuss your planning needs and get a quote!