Trying to stay organized

ms nobody

okay peeps, so over the past couple days i've put together a wedding binder with all of my contracts and vendor information, potential ceremony readings, a little inspiration, and receipts. Is there anything else i should be putting together? I'm not one for an excel spreadsheet, but i could always give it a try. ps I'm 10 + months out. TIA

DatsyuksMommy

I'm just over a year out and I have a binder for all of my information. I even keep ideas and sketches and anything I could possibly need at any appointment in there. I like to be overprepared I guess.If there is anything else I would recommend including is your personal info (name, phone, address) so that if it gets lost it can be returned to you.

cinday

Being 10 months out you are good to go. A binder is a good idea, because when it gets closer to the wedding and you need to go back and look at things again (contracts, etc.) you have them in one place. I also had a "shelf" on my bookshelf that was dedicated to the wedding. I kept everything there that I would need. Most of it was just stuff that wouldn't fit in the binder.

mink492

I printed the budget that TK made for me & used it to check off deposits & payments. I didn't use all the categories they included but it's still been helpful.

elkay

I did a variant on the binder idea. I bought a dozen white paper portfolios, those duo-tang things with 2 pockets and fasteners.  I labelled each one for a category: "Cake" "Dress" "Photo" "Guests", etc.  Notes and ideas went in one pocket, contracts clipped in the other. Photocopies of signed contracts stayed in my desk at home. I kept the portfolios in a particular neat business-y tote. Stuff was still all together, and when I had a vendor meeting I could just grab the portfolio for that meeting instead of hauling 6 tons of paper around. At rehearsal and the wedding that tote was locked in my car or with my DOC so contracts could be checked if needed. Also an expense sheet listing each vendor, date/amount of down payments, date final payment due so I could keep track of how much we were actually spending. I did make a spreadsheet for Guests. If you don't want to mess with Excel, do it by hand on ledger pads or something. I divided the guest list into Mine, His, Vendors. With a line for EACH guest by name and columns for: - mailing address - phone # -  invite sent date - reply received date - tasks (for vendors and wedding party) - rehearsal dinner invite - shower invite/reply - table number (when I did the seating chart at the last minute I could verify that I had not overlooked anyone.) And another copy of the name/address list to track who sent gift when, what, date I mailed reply. You don't have to do that yet (my entire engagement was only 9 months), but I did find it helped me track what was going on with the guest list/reply count. We had no parents involved, and I did all the contact work myself.

jujubee455

your a biatch!! Im so disorganized, can I buy you for a weekend, to help me!

rootmel1

I'm a math nerd, so I love my excel sheets!  I go a bit crazy with them...I have one for the budget...one for the payments made, one for the guest list, one detailing how many weekends are left before the wedding and what needs to be done on those weekends (since we live out of town weekends are extremely important)...I even have one to keep track of all of the thank you cards I need to send.  I'm out of control!

eclipsethecat

I did excel sheets as well- they helped me to organize everything better and they were easy to update in my computer.

festivegal2008

I actually did the excel sheet as well.  Only thing is, it's on my work computer because my home computer is a PIA.

ms nobody

lol juju... i dont know if midge will allow it hahaha thanks you crazy excell spreadsheet ladies for making me feel lazy and dumb (jk). I know i need to get on one asap. i def appreciate the ideas though, i know this is all the info that i'll wish i had in retrospect.

elkay

Look on theKnot pages also for templates for budgets and lists. They can remind you of items you've overlooked.