Organizational Tips for Catholic Wedding Planning
/ANGELA MIKRUT
Wedding planning, with all its small details and decisions, can feel overwhelming, especially if you don’t have some kind of organizational system.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Alex Krall Photography
Use these tips to help you and your fiancé stay organized and calm throughout the process.
Make a designated wedding email.
Make a designated wedding email that you can use to contact all your vendors to help keep all wedding-related communications in one place.
Using your preferred email platform, create a new account and put both you and your fiancé’s name as the owner. You can then connect the email to both you and your fiancé’s phones or laptops so that you both have access to the account and can reference important emails and future vendor contracts all in one place.
Create a physical or digital binder
Consolidate your wedding planning dreams, documents, research, and more in a designated place.
You can use Google docs if you like the convenience of a virtual document or in a binder if you prefer writing everything down. Here you can keep track of your research and make lists as they pop in your head.
If you are doing your research primarily on the computer, it would still benefit you to have a virtual document. This allows you to just copy and paste important links so that you don't have to have multiple tabs open at once and can reference your research as needed.
In my experience creating a Gmail as your wedding email and using the Google apps (docs, sheets, etc.) can help you stay organized since everything is all in one place and easy to use/access. It also allows you to share documents with other Google users with ease, so you can grant access to different people that are a part of your wedding, like your fiancé or members of your wedding party.
Communicate clearly with your bridal party.
If you choose to have a wedding party, you will want to keep them updated on important information. Let them know your expectations and what you see their role as (what they will be wearing, if you want them to throw you a bridal shower and/or bachelorette party, etc.).
Every wedding is different, and every bride has a different vision for her bridal party. Consider writing a note to your bridesmaids once you ask them to take part in your special day and share with them your vision for your wedding and their role in it.
Details can always change, but communicating with them throughout the process can benefit both you and them. In articulating the vision for your day, it will give you a clearer picture for your day and it helps you and your fiancé to organize your thoughts and ideas in order to relay them to others.
Break things down.
Research the typical order of details for planning a wedding (when to book certain vendors, when to send out invitations, etc.), then make a rough month to month checklist of what ‘should’ be done each month leading up to the wedding.
You don’t have to stress over doing each item exactly as the checklist lays out, but having a list will help you and your fiancé prioritize and plan efficiently.
Once you complete things on your list it’s not only satisfying to cross them off but it’s also an exciting countdown because each month that passes is one month closer to your big day!
Take it one day at a time
Most importantly take wedding planning one day at a time.
If you try to plan everything at once, it will all feel more intense than it should.
Remember to continually bring everything to God, asking for direction, and making decisions and both you and your fiancé feel comfortable making even if that means prolonging a decision to discern what is best when looking at the grand scheme of things.
