Planning a wedding is STRESSFUL, y’all. In fact, it is known for being one of the top 5 most stressful things you will go through in your whole life. In a perfect world, we would all have unlimited funds to hire a wedding planner. Maybe your world actually looks like this, in which case, you don’t have to read any further. My world did not look like this, so I am going to share with you the tools you’ll need when planning your wedding.
- A Right Hand Man
So this first one might not be what you would think of as a “tool,” per say, but it is by far the most important thing on this list. You might think that you can plan the whole wedding alone, but let me tell you, you can’t, especially if you are working full time, in school, etc. Many of you know that I planned my wedding while I was a ~pregnant~ senior in college. My right hand man was my mom. In fact, she was the main planner, and I was more like her right hand man. I absolutely would not have been able to do this without her. Your right hand man might be your mom, your sister, your maid of honor, hey, it might even be the groom to be! Just know that you need one, if at least for helping you catch the little things that might fall through the cracks.
2. The Knot App
This app is a life savor. I didn’t even use it to it’s full potential, but I am still going to tell you that you need it. It lists out EVERYTHING that you need to do when planning a wedding in order of when you need to do it. Once you put in your wedding date, it gives to a timeline of when certain things need to be done (i.e. when the band needs to be booked, when the wedding dress needs to be bought, etc). It also lets you set an overall budget, and then calculates what you should be spending on each part of the wedding based on that budget number. I mostly used this app when planning my giant wedding that I thought I was going to have before I found out I was pregnant. Still, even after I found out about the baby and had to plan a sooner, smaller wedding, I used their checklists to make sure I had thought of everything I needed. Bonus: the knot is FREE!
3. The Budget-Savvy Wedding Planner & Organizer
If you’re the type of person that actually likes to write out your plans and physically check things off of these handwritten lists, this is the book for you. This book has checklists, worksheets, and other tools that will help keep you sane and organized throughout the wedding planning process. Get it on Amazon for just $11.04.
4. A Good Photographer
You might be reading this and thinking, “What does this have to do with planning a wedding?” The photographer that I personally used, Alex Leaphart, literally sent me a timeline of how the day was going to go, and where photos fit into each event. She had a time for everything, from first dance, to cake cutting, to send-off, and everything in-between. This made everything way less stressful for me, and I didn’t feel like I had to make sure all of the special moments were getting captured.
5. Pinterest
This one seems obvious, but let me tell you the importance of making GOOD boards. Before I was planning a wedding, I had a Pinterest board titled “wedding.” I would pin any and every wedding pin that I would come across that I thought looked pretty. Nothing about it flowed. Looking at it, it looked like I was planning 50 different kinds of weddings. When you are actually planning your wedding, make multiple boards. Make a board for every little thing. I’m talking a separate board for wedding make up, a separate board for wedding hair, a separate board for flowers, a separate board for wedding dresses (you get the point). Most importantly, ONLY PIN STUFF THAT WILL ACTUALLY GO WITH YOUR WEDDING! For example, when you’re thinking about bridesmaids dresses, only pin what is going to flow with everything else. If you’re planning a casual, beach wedding in July, don’t pin black satin ballgown dresses on your bridesmaids Pinterest board (unless that is actually the look you are going for, in which case, you do you). I know you think they would be so pretty for a winter wedding in a ballroom venue, but that’s not what you’re having, and it will make the planning process so much harder.
I hope that you will find these tools as helpful as I did. Just remember, this will be one of the greatest days of your life! It’s such an easy thing to stress about, but don’t forget the purpose of it. You are about to form a new bond with your forever person, and that is something to be celebrated, not stressed about to the point of insanity.
