Organizing The Madness

Organizing The Madness

June 22nd, 2007 @ 2:44 pm by Mrs. Lemon
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Can I admit a little bitty mistake I made way back in the begining of our guest list planning??? The Knot. Yes, I put all of our contact information and addresses into what I thought would be an easy data management system. I was completely wrong and only realized it as I noticed the insanely wrong guest count numbers that were appearing at the top of my RSVP list. I blamed the glitch on some of my misclicks, but after trying every which way to fix it, I gave up and ran far far away. Oh, and did I tell you that this just happened last Monday??

We still needed a final catering count, a seating chart and a better way to manage all of the OOT guests… what to do? Should I just work and transfer everything into Excel and do the seating chart by hand? Or find something new? Mr. Lemon tried to convince me we could do the seating chart by hand, but since we’re parting ways in a few days, I didn’t want to try and discuss seats over the phone without both of us having visuals. And… there was no way I was going to be spending any money to make the seating magic happen. What to do, what to do?

Oh wait… what about that cool little “Bridal Toolkit” that I’d heard about from Bed, Bath & Beyond? It had a neat free seating chart function, as well as a cool guest list organizer? Hmm… might as well try, eh?

They recommend that you download their Excel template, enter in all of your guest information in their format, and then upload the file to their database. I took an hour of cutting and pasting and extracted all of the information I had in the Knot mess, and suddenly I had a much more organized database set-up. I went through and tirelesly reentered every yes and no as well as everyone’s meal choices. Mr. Lemon was able to start organizing the tables with the super easy seating chart, I was able to print out (with one little click!) the catering counts instantly, and suddenly I can relax because everything is all in one place. *PHEW*

Now, if I could go back to the begining, I would have started organizing everything using this nice free system, but if just for the ease of entering gift information and the WONDERFUL Excel files that it exports, I’m very happy to switch over now. Maybe you’ll run away from that other horrible free website and start using this one.

The Guest Card Layout

The seating chart designer (they’ve got square/round tables and you decide how many people sit at each table)

Tags: los-angeles, reception |

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20 Responses to “Organizing The Madness”

Guest

Jennifer

Do you have link to those super-nice-and-organized templates? I would luv me some of those. Thanks!

6/22/07 @ 2:49 pm (reply)

Guest

Lou

I bought I Do software by ElmSoftware for $29.95 and it has worked great so far, though I did wish it would do a few more things…will blog about that soon!

6/22/07 @ 2:55 pm (reply)

Guest

Andrea

We used google docs. We did everything in excel format and shared it between the both of us so we can just click on it from our gmail accounts. That way we can both make changes whenever needed.

6/22/07 @ 2:56 pm (reply)

Guest

Courtney

That’s interesting…The Knot totally screwed up my guest list, too! I thought it must have just been me, but I wonder if the whole thing is broken or something?

6/22/07 @ 2:57 pm (reply)

Guest

Brooke

Wow, this looks amazing! I am definitely going to use this. Thank you!!!!

6/22/07 @ 3:00 pm (reply)

Guest

bunnybride

We are managing our lists via a collaborated google docs in excel as well as a google notebook. We are going with the color coding based on what guests have done or need to do for our destination weddings for the excel sheet. The notebook is for importing flickr images, working on the playlist, etc.

6/22/07 @ 3:02 pm (reply)

Guest

thistleorchid

I’ve heard terrible things about the knot’s online system, I haven’t yet heard that someone didn’t have a problem…

6/22/07 @ 3:02 pm (reply)

Guest

I had the same problem - we ended up exporting everything to excel then when we get an RSVP we have a workbook page for the Hotels and who is stay there, the food (and who is eating what), the announcements, the general guest list, etc, etc. It’s annoying but it works for now - it’s only 150 people…

6/22/07 @ 3:04 pm (reply)

Guest

Iris

XL! And it gave DH an opportunity to show off his IT skills.

6/22/07 @ 3:10 pm (reply)

10.

Guest

Lisa

The Knot has been bad to us too. I finally stopped entering data, and asked one of my BMs to transfer the MESS to a nice, neat, excel file. It’s been my best friend ever since. I have an rsvp tab, and a gift tracking tab. What more does a bride need?

6/22/07 @ 4:13 pm (reply)

11.

Guest

Kelly

I’ve been using Weddingwire.com. It’s free and awesome with no problems yet.

6/22/07 @ 4:25 pm (reply)

12.

Guest

Jen

The same thing happened to me too, except luckily i discovered it way in the beginning. i took 2 days to put everyone’s name in and check all what i THOUGHT were the right boxes, which of course was very wrong. ended up with the excel file instead, which is great, esp since it makes merging addresses easy.

6/22/07 @ 5:32 pm (reply)

13.

Guest

kandaceandjason

I’ve been playing with BBB’s for the past few hours, per your suggestion. It’s decent, but I’m not really a fan of the flash animation that makes everything take so long to do!

6/22/07 @ 6:08 pm (reply)

14.

Guest

shelle23

I’m so glad you posted this. I’m going to transfer everything to an excel spreadsheet tonight!

6/22/07 @ 6:24 pm (reply)

15.

Guest

michelle.

this looks great!! question though, did you do all of this just through excel? or did you use the “bridal toolkit” that you mentioned. i was a bit confused about it. thanks!

6/23/07 @ 2:44 am (reply)

16.

Guest

Brook

Oh this is awesome! I have everything in excel, after trying the knot website first as well! So I am very excited to hear there’s a free program that will help us as the BIG day approaches!! Kudos to you Miss Lemon, your a god sent!

3 and 1/2 months to our wedding day!

6/23/07 @ 9:03 am (reply)

17.

Guest

Bupbabe

I also used iDo software for my recent wedding and it was invaluable. I loved the ability to make a change in one place (i.e. the contact record) and have it happen globally throughout the program instead of fiddling with Excel spreadsheets. The report function was essential; everytime someone needed a list for something I just did a filter, ran it and BOOM! 10 seconds later had a report will all the relevant data. I, like the previous poster, wished it did more (the budget function sucks, quite frankly), but otherwise it was the best $30 I spent on the wedding and well worth every penny.

6/23/07 @ 6:54 pm (reply)

18.

Guest

gabzoots

ugh, i’m using the knot also (i made the mistake of having our guests rsvp through their online feature!), and if i could go back & do it all again, i certainly would NOT use the knot!! it’s a pain, it’s hard to update, and it randomly seems to make or not make changes, depending on its mood. grrrr. as if i don’t have enough stress, now i’ve got to do 2x the work?! terrible.

6/25/07 @ 11:50 am (reply)

19.

Member

brinkleyaimee (message) 13 posts, Newbee

i used Seating Arrangement for my wedding.
it helped a lot.. i was able to design the floor plan, manage the guest list, track RSVPs, assign seating and more…
it worked for me..
http://www.seatingarrangement.com/

aimee

3/5/08 @ 2:35 pm (reply)

20.

Member

janeayre (message) 3 posts, Wannabee

The Knot was crazyyy! I went berserk with losing data and spending hours entering guest data in…what a waste of time.

I recently switched to Google Docs and its so much better, as I share with the Mr. and some friends. I then import the Excel sheets to weddingwire.com guest list, which really saved me some time and it also works with their seating chart and RSVP.

Maybe I’ll checkout the Bridal Toolkit also if the free service doesn’t work out

7/16/08 @ 1:59 pm (reply)