Weddingbee Blog

Sorry for the brief absence from the blogosphere! Mr. Unicycle is home on break right now, so I’m trying to spend as much time with him as I can, even though our time together is usually spent doing stupid stuff like shopping for boring computer components and falling asleep to the Game Show Network. Now that the holidays are winding down I’m attacking our wedding (and wedding blogging!) like a vicious animal on…a not quite as vicious animal. This wedding will be pwned in the next few months! We’re only six months out and I’m starting to feel really behind. So, my New Year’s resolution is to finish planning our wedding. I figured it was a good resolution, since it will happen no matter how lazy I get. Plus, my other resolution idea (to “not be such a bitch all the time”) is already proving too difficult, and it’s not even 2012 yet.

Image via Fungagz

The problem is, I’m both a bitch and an asshole. And yes, I Googled “Stop being a bitch.”

Going along with the New Year’s resolution theme, I thought I’d share with you my super amazing wedding organization system.

I tried to buy one of those enormous pink contraptions that offered tips for wedding planning plus folders, boxes, and other nooks and crannies for storing fabric swatches, business cards, paint chips, and the like, but I realized early on in wedding planning that a tangible wedding organization system was not for me. Here’s why:

1. I sit in front of a computer all day at work, and I usually stay at my desk during lunch too. I also tend to boot up the ol’ laptop when I get home from work too, meaning “the cloud” is constantly at my fingertips.
2. Mr. Unicycle lives in another state, and we don’t see each other on a regular basis. Most of our wedding conversations happen over email or on the phone, while we both are on our respective laptops.
3. I type a lot faster than I write. Plus, you can’t control+F on your handwriting. And you can’t move cells around in a penned spreadsheet. You can’t use your computer hacking skillz to insert formulas on a written spreadsheet either.

Image via Sophie’s Favors

I could have done so much with one of these…

When I started doing actual wedding planning (the kind that requires more than just a Pinterest account and a childlike idealism), I decided to create one big, monstrous, all-encompassing wedding Google doc. I was hugely influenced by Ms. Ferris Wheel’s post on the topic (which is to say, I blatantly copied her style).

The first tab is Addresses, where I store all of our guests’ names and addresses, perfect for mail merging! I’ve already used this doc for our Save the Dates, and it’s even come in handy for some NWR mailing I’ve had to do. I even used it to find one of my friends’ addresses en route to her apartment, to plug it into my GPS. Gotta love technology.

A very unnecessary, blurry screenshot. You all know how to format a spreadsheet for addresses anyway.

The next few tabs are for various vendor comparisons. I already talked about our Venues doc, on which we performed a complex statistical analysis wherein Google Docs decided which venue to choose, and I showed you a snippet of our Photographers doc too. We’ve also got one for Videographers (more on that later!), DJs, hotels, and the oh so cryptic “other vendors” tab.

Our Guest List doc is similar to our addresses doc, except it’s where we note who is bringing a plus one, who has kids (more on that later too), and who has already been sent a Save the Date—which is everyone at this point. It’s also where we figure out how much our reception is going to cost, because we assigned each guest a tag (vendor, adult guest, under 21 adult guest, or child guest), and each tag a different dollar value (depending on how much the venue charges for each type of guest–for instance, vendors are half price, children get a special, cheaper meal, and under 21 adults aren’t contributing to our bar tab). Mr. Unicycle once again put his computer hacking skillz (not really) to use to devise a complex (not really) formula that adjusts the cost of our reception as we add or subtract (muahaha) guests from the spreadsheet. Super cool.

The numbers aren’t very accurate right now, but we’ll work on it more as the RSVPs roll in. Which won’t be until we send our invitations. Which won’t happen until we start making them.

Another tab is my DIY Projects spreadsheet, where I list the project I want to make, where I can find inspiration/instructions, and what I need to buy for the project. There’s another column to indicate whether each project is completed, as well. I haven’t used this much since I set it up, but I think it’s a nice idea for other organization-minded brides.

One of my favorite tabs is our Music spreadsheet, which I already talked about in another post about song choice. As I listen to Pandora all day at work, I’ll occasionally hear a song I just NEED to have at our wedding, so I’ll quickly log in to my wedding spreadsheet, plop it into the document, and get back to work.

I’m keeping track of our guests’ song requests via our sweet website widget, and you’ll notice some overlap between those songs and our Do Not Play list…not sure how to reconcile this…awkward…

And next up, we have my least favorite tab, the Budget spreadsheet. Mr. Unicycle created this for me after I nagged him incessantly for weeks, and now I never use it because it makes me feel ashamed about all the purchases I make. He created sections for Reception, Clothing and Beauty, Decorations, Ceremony, Music, Photo/Video, Rings, Transportation and Lodging, Gifts, and Stationery. He then broke these sections up into smaller expenses—for example, Stationery has Save the Dates, invitations, and Thank You notes under it. He then added columns for how much we’ve budgeted, how much we’ve actually spent, and how much we have left over (or how much we’ve gone over budget). This way I can easily move funds around if my dress comes in under budget or our rings cost more than expected.

You can see that we came in under budget for photo and video (yay!) and we’re planning on cheaping out on the rings.

I saved the best tab for last, and I’m going to leave you in suspense and show you in the next post because this one is too long and I’m tired. No, actually it’s because the last tab (the To Do Timeline–GET EXCITED!) warrants a post of its own.

How do you keep yourself organized during wedding planning? Are you more of a tangible wedding binder type of bride, or do you like to keep things online like me?