Weddingbee Blog

I have a confession: I’m glued to my iPhone. Attached at the hip. No, fingers. It’s my go-to source for news, e-mail, music, entertainment…do I need to continue? Whether it’s commuting on the train, eating alone at lunch, waiting for a table at the restaurant, or even prepping for bedtime, my fingers are swiping left and right on the mobile device. I love technology and all the benefits and conveniences it comes with—especially when I’m on the road and feeling disconnected from my family and friends back home.

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It was a no-brainer that Mr. French Toast and I would utilize these technological advances to our benefit when it came time for wedding planning. But first things first—compile the addresses of our guests. In this day and age, it’s a pain to memorize phone numbers, let alone addresses! So naturally, we turned to our beloved Google to help us keep track of the guest list and addresses.

Google has a nifty “Survey” tool, which you can customize and share with your friends. Their responses are consolidated into a spreadsheet, which you can then export and use to make labels, placecards, programs—you name it, you got it! Here’s a simple tutorial I whipped up:

Log in to your Google Docs and select -> Create New -> Form.

Name your form. For us, we simply called it, “Form for Mr. & Miss French Toast.” Boring? Yes. Gets the job done? YES!

Then you can write a little snippet if you want to provide more info for your guests, such as “You better fill this out OR ELSE…” Or you could be nice and say, “We have some wedding-related items to send to you. Please fill this form out. Thank you!”

Then we get into the meat and bones of the survey. This is where you ask your guests to fill in their names.

Question Title - “What is your name?”

Help Text - Include a hint to nudge them and help them answer the question above.

Question Type - Just choose text because this will allow your guests to type anything.

Select “Make this a required question” because you need to know the name that corresponds to the address.

Do the same for Question 2, but instead modify it to request their address.

You can even change the background to reflect your style. Last I checked, Google offered 95 themes.

After you’ve saved the form, simply e-mail it to your guests and voila! You’re done.

My friend, A, told me that another friend who was getting married e-mailed everyone directly for their addresses. She received 97 individual replies and had to copy and paste each one into her spreadsheet. I shudder at the thought of the time and effort that went into that.

Better yet, if you have a website, you can embed the survey into your site and even make it a guestbook. Simply go to More Actions -> Embed. Copy the HTML code and paste it onto your website’s code.

Even Mr. French Toast turned to me after we hit the “send” button and asked, “Did you blog about this yet? It’s so convenient!” I can’t help but get a little smug when he’s impressed! I almost felt like MacGyver, version 2010.

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How did you collect your guests’ information? Did you utilize any free tools or services?