Wedding Party Planning Guide: Transform Lucky in Love into Smart and Organized
Event Planning Resources
Planning a wedding is a time to celebrate being lucky in love. These tools can help your process stay smooth, easy and organized.
Planning a wedding is a time to celebrate being lucky in love. These tools can help your process stay smooth, easy and organized.
You're engaged! Congratulations. It's an exciting time filled with celebrations. But let's be realistic here, it's also filled with lots of planning, which can be stressful for some (aka, most) engaged couples. In fact, 47% of couples said the process was so stressful they considered eloping or getting married at city hall. But don't fret! In this post, we're helping you transform the feeling of lucky in love to smart and organized. We combine tools, tips, and hints from professionals and personal experience into one easy-to-use guide.
There are many parts and pieces that need to come together for a successful set of wedding celebrations. One connection that flows through every party — outside of the beautiful couple, of course — is organizing guest lists. We're focusing on how you can maximize your efforts while planning all of these celebrations. There are tools to help you stay organized and sane during the planning process.
Weddings typically include a stream of events — not just the big day. You'll plan an engagement party, shower (sometimes two if each side of the family is large or in different locations), bachelor and bachelorette parties, the wedding itself, and a post-wedding brunch. You may not be planning all of these events, but even a couple can cause underlying panic.
In addition to planning and informing your guests of important details, you're also balancing a budget. If you need help figuring out costs, specific to your location, you can use this tool to get an idea of how much you'll likely need to save and spend.
One important reminder we want to give those who are lucky in love — stay flexible. You should be open and ready for change. It's virtually inevitable while planning your wedding. On average, couples spend 13-18 months planning their celebrations. Things happen over the course of a year and a half. Regardless of how successful your planning, surprises will likely occur. Of course, not all surprises are bad. It's important to stay flexible and focussed.
Leverage tools to help you, your future spouse and all of your friends and family stay up-to-date with all the changes that will happen between sending out save the dates and invitations. Gretel is your go-to contact management app and is designed with engaged couples in mind. In fact, you're one of our primary audiences. We have features that help you keep your contacts organized, updated and secure now, throughout planning and after your wedding. (Because god forbid you don't get Aunt Nancy's address change for that thank you card.)
Whether you're sharing where the group is going for a bachelor/bachelorette party nightcap or choosing a location for post-ceremony photos, you can get your groups in the know with a tool like Gretel. Our contact management app helps you share destinations with groups with a click of a button.
You can easily create groups to help keep all of your parties organized and keep everyone on the same page, especially if plans change at the last minute. It also helps you ensure that you have the most updated contact information (phone number, emails, mailing addresses, and social media profiles, etc.) for everyone on your guest list.
While planning your big day, you're going to come in contact with a lot of new vendors and websites. That means plenty of people asking for your information — specifically your email address. To avoid inundating your personal inbox with wedding messages, create a wedding-specific email address (Ex. your name + fiancé's name + wedding@gmail.com).
Not only will it keep you organized, but a dedicated email will also help you to manage your time, as you can check this email when you want. Make sure to share the password with your future spouse (and possibly the wedding planner if they're managing your entire planning process). Keeping them in the loop will help ensure everyone is on the same page and easily has access to information.
You don't have to make all of your decisions at once. You also don't have to plan all of your parties at the same time. In fact, we recommend planning one step at a time. For example, focus one day on picking a color theme for your wedding. This theme can help guide other steps of your planning process — from wedding party attire to decor. The next day, you can focus on picking locations for your parties. Create a list of a few locations for each event, make phone calls, get pricing and availability, and go from there.
Avoid losing contracts and contacts by switching everything for your wedding to digital resources. For example, when you're working with vendors, ask if you can scan and send contracts virtually, and then store them in a digital folder like Google Drive or Dropbox.
Keeping everything in order with digital resources increases organization and keeps everything in one, easy-to-access, always available folder. Just think, if you're out and about and need a reminder on the price of flowers, you can pull up your contract via your mobile device and get the information you need with a few clicks.
In addition to contracts, you can use Gretel to manage your contacts. Gretel keeps you in control of your personal information and gives you live updates when your contacts make changes to their data. Our tool is really helpful when planning wedding events and keeps your guest lists accurate and easily accessible.
Gretel helps eliminate your worries around contact management by providing you with:
In addition to our tips, there are plenty of tools available online to help you plan your special day (and importantly, stay lucky in love with your future spouse).
Leveraging the right tools during your wedding planning adventure helps keep you sane. It's a special time in your life, and you don't want to get bogged down with stress. We're here to help. If you have questions around how Gretel can help you manage guest lists, reach out to our team today!