(Just in case you are wondering: you can’t book the businesses in the screenshot of a folder organised to avoid wedding planning stress. I made them up. All except my own. Any similarity with real business names and people is purely coincidental.)
3 Simples ways to avoid wedding planning stress
Wedding planning will keep you super busy. So much is unavoidable. But there is a few things you can do to avoid wedding planning stress.
How I am qualified to give this advice
Ok, so I am not a wedding planner. But I have planned corporate events with up to 400 guests, which included children, organising the guest transport and guest accommodation.
I have also worked as Database Coordinator and Developer, and as Document Control Lead.
As you can see, organising people and information has been my bread and butter for more than a decade before I planned my own wedding.
Any advice I give today, is based on using what I learned from my corporate life and how it helped planning my own wedding.
So why am I not a wedding planner?
Simply because I enjoy documenting and capturing your love story for posterity a lot more than I would enjoy organising your day.
A story of piles of papers and lost emails
This! This is what you don’t want!
The information you need to organise can be split into two groups: Suppliers and Guests.
So that is how you should set up your e-mail folders, and the folders on your computer or google drive, to make it easy to find things and avoid wedding planning stress.
1. Folder naming to save you time
Naming the folder simply after the name of the supplier seems logical, but you will go mad trying to find anything.
(Just in case you are wondering: you can’t book these businesses. I made them up. All except my own. Any similarity with real business names and people is purely coincidental.)
You could create a subfolder for every type of supplier you enquire with, but the clicking through folders will quickly go on your nerves. Especially once you have booked and there is only one company per supplier type.
Putting what a supplier is for in front of their name, is a simple, yet time saving way of organising your wedding paperwork and help avoid wedding planning stress.
(Just in case you are wondering: you can’t book these businesses. I made them up. All except my own. Any similarity with real business names and people is purely coincidental.)
Once you have booked your supplier, let the other supplier’s know you won’t be using them and archive their folders.
Depending on what platform you are on, this might be as easy as a right click and clicking “archive”. Alternatively, create an archive folder and move them into there.
You could of course delete them, but I would keep them until your wedding day.
Imagine a suppliers has to cancel. You might be happy to accept their associate, but you might prefer one of the suppliers you enquired with before. If you still have their info, it will be quick and easy to contact them again.
2. Spreadsheets, Databases, Wedding Websites
Did I just hear you groan?
You need to have something that easily lets you see all the key information in one place. If for nothing else than to make sure you are sticking to your overall budget.
A spreadsheet is a quick and (for most people) accessible way to do this.
For suppliers, your spreadsheet should include your supplier’s names, service type, contact details, a column for total cost to make sure you keep within your budget, plus room for payment dates and amounts so you will not miss your payments.
For guests, your spreadsheet should keep track of who confirmed and who can’t come, and any requirements you will need to let the venue know about, like dietary requirements, children’s meals, special needs, etc.
If you have the skill, a database is even better than a spreadsheet, since it allows you to retrieve data in exactly the way you need it.
But don’t worry if you haven’t! A spreadsheet will do just fine and many wedding websites have a setup capable of tracking your guests’ RSVPs saving you a lot of time.
3. The Little Black Book and how it helps to avoid wedding planning stress
Not all correspondence happens via e-mail!
So make sure you have another way to capture any important information in one place.
My wedding was a few years ago (roughly 3000 I think), so I had a little notebook with a set of pages assigned to each supplier. I would just scribble notes of phone calls, and dates we sent contracts into it.
Nowadays, I would use a shared document or notepad on our phones or on a google drive.
Do it in the way that will work for you. You will be busy. Make it as simple and accessible as possible.
The horrible secret no one tells you about
You will be busy. They tell you that!
They don’t tell you, that the last 4 weeks before your wedding will be…insane. There, I said it!
I can’t even remember what I was busy with. Lots of little things. However, I do remember never having slept so little in my life!
You can avoid the worst by making sure everything, that can be done, is done before you hit the 4-week-to-I-do-day.
The other thing no one tells you about is the lull that sets in sometime within the 48 hours before you get married.
This can drive you mad with anxiety!
Having worked above capacity for weeks, it can make you think that you must have forgotten something.
You haven’t! This is perfectly normal. You only just did it: You organised your wedding.
How I help make your wedding photography planning less stressful
There is a few things I do to make sure you are getting the photos you want and that the planning process is as easy as it can be, like getting all the info I need from you well before the 4-week-rush.
To find out more details of how I help you avoid wedding planning stress, read about what happens when you enquire with me and when you book me:
Click here for my blog: What to Expect When You Enquire With Me
Bright blessings,
Alternative Wedding And Handfasting Photographer UK and EU
