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How to Plan a Wedding: Paper or Digital

in Getting Started
Bride planning her wedding with a laptop and printed materials.

When full on wedding planning starts to kick in (and you’ll know when it does!), having a plan in place to organize all of the information that’s coming your way will be key to your wedding planning success, particularly if you’re planning the wedding yourself. Bridal show materials have sufficiently piled up, business cards are everywhere, and your guest list has taken on a life of its own.

How do you possibly go about taming this beast that is wedding planning?

Determine Your Personal Work Style

First, a question: Do you work better writing things down and keeping track of names and numbers on paper? Or do you like keeping things organized in electronic format – in your inbox, your calendar or on your smartphone?

For many, it’s a bit of both. You may love technology for all the time it saves – from sending out an email quickly to searching for exactly what you’re looking for on your computer or mobile device (and with any luck, finding it!)

But you might also love the feel of simply taking pen to paper, organizing your various lists over a cup of coffee, and brainstorming to really get things rolling. Sometimes it’s hard to get into that same brainstorming “zone” in front of a computer screen.

These days, couples are highly successful with planning using both methods.

Because there will be quite a bit of data that will become more difficult to keep track of as the months progress, using an app or simply creating a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Docs can definitely help. For example, compiling guest addresses and keeping track of RSVPs on the computer means not having to continually worry about keeping this information current on paper. And after the wedding, you can even print out address labels for your thank you cards from the addresses you’ve captured.

At the very least, you may want to start a word processing file for all of your vendor contact info (email addresses, phone numbers, etc.) When the big day gets close, you can send this file around to all of your vendors so that everyone’s on the same page; pun intended. 😉

With all of your wedding information contained in just one or two central locations, you’re well on your way to a smooth, stress-free day.

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