Wedding Wednesday: Getting Organized

Whether you are two weeks or two months into your wedding planning, chances are you've started quite the collection of paperwork. You might already have signed contracts from your reception site, perhaps you have receipts from your dress purchase, and of course there are all of those little bits of paper that you've been jotting ideas down on. Many stores have "comprehensive" wedding planning binders that you can purchase (usually for a sizable chunk of change), but I found that it was much easier (and much more cost-effective) to make one myself. This way I was able to customize it for what I needed, and wasn't paying money for stuff I wouldn't get any use of.

All you really need is a three-ring binder with pockets, a handful of sheet protectors, and some loose leaf paper. Here's what mine looked like:

The pockets were great because I could stick stuff there that was a "top priority" so I would remember to get it done, plus they served as a nice catch-all for miscellaneous papers that didn't fit anywhere else. I then had about fifteen pages of loose-leaf paper, labeled for different aspects of my wedding (reception, bridal party, ceremony, etc), and keep notes on the appropriate sheets throughout the planning process. Looking back, I realized that there were lots of ideas that we had written down that we never ended up doing, but I'm still glad we wrote so much down so that we had options when it came to the finalization of the details. I also included in my binder a wedding planner workbook that I was able to print for free from eleGALA.com; although I didn't utilize all the pages, it had some nice budget and planning sheets and was easy enough to three-hole punch to include in my binder.

Next came the sheet protectors. This was probably the aspect of my binder that I was most grateful for. Most of the papers and documents you get from vendors isn't uniformly sized and often can't be easily hole-punched. So each vendor got its own "sleeve" where I was able to store brochures, business cards, copies of the contracts, etc.

I also had a sleeve that I used for storing general receipts (paper plates for the rehearsal dinner, candles for the centerpieces, etc) so that I made sure to track those expenses and also so that I had the receipts available in case a return or exchange needed to be made.

It was also helpful that I bought had a purse that my binder would fit into. I could easily carry it with me anywhere so I always had some place to jot ideas, no matter where they came to me (like songs that I did/didn't want being played). Plus whenever we met with vendors I knew I would have the documents from our previous meetings as well as easily be able to file away new information.

Even if you aren't normally an organized person, planning a wedding is a good time to start improving your organization habits. Or at least enlist in the help of someone who is well organized. Because by the time everything is said and done, you'll have likely acquired quite a bit of paperwork. And some of it you may even want to have around after the wedding, in case a vendor does not fulfill one of their contractual obligations and you want to get your money back (this may sound petty now, but trust me, you'll feel differently if your photographer ruins your wedding photos and/or does not take the photos he/she had agreed to. Getting that money back won't fix the issue, but it may ease the pain).