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I’ve been planning stuff since I was a kid. I used to plan bake sales and carnivals and clubs. I always had folders with ideas organized perfectly, even if what I was planning never happened.
Naturally, I try to stay organized with the wedding planning. I started with a binder, where I stored brochures from local vendors, ideas of things printed out from online, and list upon list of things to do. I have since moved to a smaller binder now that all our vendors are booked. It is mainly used as storage for receipts and contracts.
I logged into my other obsession (or time waster), Facebook, this morning to see this on my profile:
That’s right! We are officially one month out from the wedding. I’m getting so excited, at times a little nervous and, most of all, antsy. I’m ready to see it all come together, the signs, flowers, lighting, music, decorations, favors - EVERYTHING!
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Well, my friends, it is now less than a week to my wedding–I can’t believe it. I am totally calm, I kid you not. Almost everything is done. Momma Puff and Puff Daddy are coming into town tonight, and they each have a short list of projects to help me out, but all the big things are DONE!
The one thing that has been a major lifesaver for me throughout this wedding process has been my Mad Crazy Skills of Organization. I am a Virgo and find organization infinitely amazing and loads of fun (the sick thing is that I’m totally not kidding!). Organizing all the details has actually been pretty entertaining for me, but also really helpful for all of our vendors.
First, I’d like to share with you what our house looks like right now. After that, I’ll get into my planning organization. Some of you might not find organization as thrilling as I do, so I expect that there will probably be about two comments on this post. But if this helps two people get better organized, I figure it’s worth the post. 
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Our photographer requested a Day-of timeline from me, and I sent one to her. Little did I know, it was borderline pathetic. Since she’s had more experience with weddings than I, she kindly sent me a sample of a GOOD timeline, and I quickly spiffed mine up a bit. Your day of will obviously be very different from mine, but it’s nice to have a place to start, as I know the sample that Sarah sent me was heaps of help.
I did mine in Google Docs, and e-Mailed it to everyone involved in the wedding, and also brought copies to the rehearsal dinner for anyone who needed a printout. Google Docs allow you to create documents or spreadsheets that are stored online. You can share your document via email with anyone you like, and allow (or disallow) them to make changes to it, that you’ll automatically see. The great thing about Google Docs is that when you update the document, you don’t have to resend it to all your friends…they will automatically always have the latest copy.
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I need to share with you one of the most amazing organizational tools. Seriously. Shared by some of the awesome women over at Indiebride, it is by far the most comprehensive wedding planning spreadsheet I have seen, complete with formulas to help you calculate total costs and the number of people each person (bride, groom, parents) is inviting.Here are just some of the features:
Budget- it sure helps to keep track of the costs (and when more payments are due) in one spot.
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As we all know, trying to manage all the little details of a wedding can get a little overwhelming. Miss Hydrangea shared her secrets to keeping her sanity. Here are mine. And I know how nerdy I am about to sound, but apparently being nerdy has become the new cool.
Before Mr. Peacock proposed, I loved my Gmail account. I would tell everyone about how they needed to get out of whatever tired email account they had because Gmail rocked. Then, as we started talking guest lists, booking appointments with vendors and reading mass amounts of wedding blogs, I realized that my love for Google went beyond their near perfect email system and large database of images. I don’t actually mean to pick favorites, but I can’t find any similar programs out there that work as well. Here are the highlights!
Google Reader
Create the honeymoon of your dreams.
Wanderluster has tipped me off to one of the most awesome planning things ever.
Google Notebook.
Seriously. I don’t know about you, but I have, oh, 6.02 x 10^23 pages bookmarked in various folders in my internet browser. (Alright, so maybe Avogadro’s number is an exaggeration. But I have a lot.) And it can be really hard to find the exact “super awesome red invitation” picture that I’m looking for.
Downloading them to my desktop helps with the organization some, but I’m not always good at remembering where my sources come from.
Cue Google Desktop. It enables you to save pictures and text from websites in your own “notebook” which can be divided into various sections. It automatically provides the source for it, and you can also take notes. All it takes is a simple right click of the mouse to post it into your noteback.
Though I was skeptical at first, I am now a full believer in the iPhone. Because of this phone, my mom and I were always able to get directions anywhere to our venue appointments. I could constantly keep up with my e-mails for the wedding at any time.
(picture from techdigest.tv)
Back when I was first engaged (ok… why lie… it was at least a month before we got engaged ), I purchased a wedding planning book. I had done some research in the bookstores and I had experience as a planner myself, so I knew what I was looking for.
Unfortunately, the most perfect book for me, was also spiral bound. So I bought it, demolished it and put it in a 3-ring binder. Over the months, my binder became stuffed with inspiration photos, business cards, informational articles, invitation mock-ups, vendor contracts in mid-contract, etc. I always had the notion of someday making it all ‘perfect’ and organized, but the reality was, I didn’t have time to figure it all out, and I knew where everything was, so when I needed information, I just went to it.
I subscribe to a lot of magazines, and for years I’ve been cutting out pages and organizing them according to title, topic and year. While I would have liked to save entire issues, organizing individual pages by topic made it easier to go back and find specific things when I was looking for them.
But when it came to my beloved issues of Martha Stewart or Domino Magazine, I was cutting out at least half the pages of the magazine. Still, I felt that was more efficient than wading through entire magazines full of ads.
Then the other night in beetv chat, a future bee-to-bee shared her trick - she cuts out all the ads and leaves the content in the original magazine binding! Why didn’t I think of that?! I tried this for the first time last night with the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living. I love that I’ve saved only what I want to save in its original form, and of course the best part - no ads!
These are two of my favorite ideas from this month’s issue of MS Living. The felt fortune cookies and the Chinese lantern vase cover are great, easy and affordable diy ideas for your Asian inspired wedding!
Planning a wedding can turn you into a magazine junkie (I was certainly guilty of it!). So how do you organize all your magazines?
Image found here
Just like Professor Hinkle in Frosty the Snowman, I’ve got to get busy writing. We’ve got the final wording of our invitations to edit, as well Christmas cards to write and then address. I’ve got the added “benefit” of writing a final paper and grading as well - in addition, of course, to the non-writing tasks that lay before us, like shopping for presents, and taking care of miscellaneous wedding details, like ordering cardstock and envelopes. All in all it makes for a busy time for Mr. Dahlia and I.
The day after we got engaged, Mr. Canary and I were walking around the city and we passed by a Borders on the way home. I had to stop in and buy my first bridal magazines. I had resisted purchasing them before we were engaged, though I have to admit I had been browsing on the knot, weddingbee, and indiebride a lot. Since we’d been dating for so long, I had an idea that the proposal was coming, just not sure when because our lives were in such flux.
But I think it freaked Mr. C out a bit because I was going bonkers over all the choices and possibilities. I admit, it may have been overwhelming, since Mr. C was just coming off the stress of dealing with my parents and the high of the perfect proposal… just as he thought that the hard part was over, I bust out with three magazines and go on about the guest list. Mr. C was seriously stunned. I’ve gotten a lot better lately, but I think I still freak him out when I show him all the information I’ve amassed for the wedding!
I think it really helped to get really organized in the beginning. In my previous life, I was an advertising account executive for big corporate clients. Staying organized = staying sane. We had so many projects going on at once that I had to keep separate folders and schedules for each and remind clients of anything they forgot. Read more…
Edit: Wow - I’m so glad that so many of you find that this would be a helpful tool! It’s very encouraging to me, not to mention that it reassures me that I am not completely crazy 
. Due to the level of responses, Mrs. Bee informed me that she could actually upload this so that you all could download it directly. So w/o further ado, here it is. Happy planning!
miss_daffodil_-_wedding_workplan_sample.ppt
PS - It’s a Powerpoint file, so hopefully most of you have the application already installed on your computers.
About 3 months after Mr. Pumpkin proposed, I bought the Martha Stewart Wedding Planner.
Inside there are sections for each area of planning (ceremony, reception, flowers, etc…) and information on each of these areas. Since I had already purchased every issue of MS Weddings and InStyle Weddings from the previous 5 years, I did not find the information particularly helpful but there is a lot in there to help if you are just starting out. What I found most helpful were the pockets in each section for you to keep and organize ideas of your own. In the back there are also two Ziplock type plastic envelopes as well as a place to keep business cards organized. This is what my book looks like now:
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