One Man’s Wedding Lessons Learned – The Wedding Checklist Edition

If you’re anything like me you have a system of staying organized and reminding yourself of what you need to do, that while defying all forms of logic and common sense, seems to miraculously work for you.  If you’re not like me you’re probably one of those types who abide religiously by the teachings of some efficiency guru and you probably aren’t even reading this.  While a bizarre hodge-podge of Post-it Notes, Outlook reminders, text messages, emails, notes and calendars on your phone, scribbles on scraps of paper and the backs of envelopes and notebooks may somehow keep your family fed, the bills paid on-time and all of the work tasks unexplainably on-track; take it from someone who’s been there and done that, you need good, simple organization if you’re planning your own wedding.

When I was getting ready for my wedding, I scoffed at the idea of wedding organization!  You see, at the time, quite a few moons ago, I was doing a lot of event planning in my career.  “I plan, market and run multiple conventions every year,” I thought, “I can make a wedding happen.  It’s not even going to be a big wedding.  No Sweat.”  Yeah.  Uh-huh.  Let me tell you, it matters not how many conferences, conventions, meetings, fairs, carnivals or other dog and pony shows you’ve planned; planning a wedding is nothing like any of it.  First of all there’s a very unique culture amongst those who provide wedding services.  What may seem as simple as calling someone up, booking them, and maybe having to sign a contract; can be much more involved.  Secondly, believe it or not, when you’re doing something for yourself it becomes personal and you will care much more about what you are doing than you think you will.  Third, your soon-to-be spouse is involved.  Hey!  Guys out there – yeah you – did you get that?  YOUR SOON-TO-BE SPOUSE IS INVOLVED!  That means two people’s way of doing things and if you’re the groom and something goes wrong, yep, you guessed it, the blame’s going to be on you.  Just sayin’.

But seriously, staying organized when you’re planning a wedding is very important if you want it to go off without a hassle and you want to stay sane.  One day my then-fiancée came home with this huge wedding planning binder full of pockets and envelopes and folders that she no doubt paid a good fifty bucks for.  It was handy.  It kept all of our stuff in one place, but I could have accomplished the same thing with a ten dollar trip to a stationery store except for one thing; the wedding planning checklist that it contained.   That one document was the most important thing that kept us organized for our wedding.  Did we need everything on it? No, of course not, and it didn’t actually have everything we needed, but it was a start and it got us thinking.  We just crossed off what we didn’t need, added what we thought of that was unique to us and not on the checklist and it became our roadmap for wedding planning.  It was simple.  One single document with all the important stuff we needed to do in one place and it worked for both of us.

Since we’re all about helping you save a few bucks here at 123Print, we went ahead and put together a wedding planning checklist you can use to get started with.   And guess what?  It’s free!  Plus, if you really want the experience of the big, huge, fifty-dollar binder of pockets, envelopes and folders, we’ll show you how to create your own with stuff you can find around the house, thieve from the office, or get at your favorite office supply store.