Weddingbee Blog

There is nothing like wedding planning to bring out the crazy.

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Yes. Crazy as in Shutter Island crazy.

Seriously. I consider myself to be fairly laid-back and easygoing (OK, so I might be somewhat type-A, but still). That is, I did until I started planning a wedding. Honestly, I had no idea that it would bring out all sorts of crazy in me.

First of all, I like having to-do lists because I like the satisfaction of ticking things off of lists. So, upon getting engaged, I promptly Googled “wedding checklist.” Yeah, rookie mistake. So many checklists out there! I was getting stressed just figuring out which checklist I wanted to use. This did not bode well.

I finally came accross Russell + Hazel; they have some really great, comprehensive checklists on their website. For free!! Score! Go to their site and print them all out right now.

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(I also ordered their super-fancy wedding binder, which I am in love with.) Anyway, I printed out ALL of their templates, which you can download (again, for FREE, people!) here, and proceeded to fill the binder with the lists, my inspiration photos, and random pictures and advice I had ripped out of my plethora of wedding magazines. (I have an addiction.)

The checklists are for everything—a general timeline (one of the biggest helps to me, since I felt super overwhelmed at the beginning of the process—well, still do), specific vendor checklists, contact sheets. The list goes on and on. The only downside is that you have to go into each individual checklist (there are 57!), figure out which ones you need (I, for example, didn’t need the destination-wedding schedule), and print each one individually. A bit time consuming, but worth it.

Whew, one thing ticked off my list—finding good checklists! Now, that’s all well and good, but this wedding stuff? Yeah, things sit on my checklists forever and don’t get ticked off. And this stresses me out. Why? I have no idea! I realize that there are timelines and you don’t need to deal with certain things until certain months, but for some reason I hate seeing things just sitting on the list, not getting dealt with RIGHT NOW and not getting checked off. I never knew I was this uptight about things. I have all of these lists in my head, too, of what I need to do RIGHT NOW—all of these tasks and ideas floating around in my brain. What is wrong with me? Why has this wedding made me so stressed out?? Oh, right—it’s a wedding.

For those of you who have planned weddings, how did you cope with all of this? What organization tactics did you use? (Or maybe you just weren’t as crazy to begin with as I am. There’s always that.)