Staying organized while planning your wedding is tough! There are so many details, people, and vendors to figure out. Typically, you will spend months or years planning your big day. That’s a long time to keep all of the information about your wedding from getting lost. Most people don’t realize how much work goes into wedding planning. If you got engaged recently, and you’re not sure where to start, we’ve got you! Here are our best tips for keeping everything together while planning your wedding!

Hire a Professional Wedding Planner

If you can afford it, a professional wedding planner is such a big help. From the big picture to every last little detail, they help you refine your wedding vision and keep everything organized. Most wedding planners handle almost everything for you, including contacting and paying vendors.

At the beginning, it may seem easy to keep everything organized. There is not much to do when you start wedding planning. Keep in mind, the closer that you get to wedding day, the more you will have to do. The last month or two leading up to wedding day can be very stressful, getting everything ready in time. Depending on how complex your wedding vision is, it can be hours worth of work every day.

If you don’t think you need a professional wedding planner, consider a day-of coordinator. We had one at our wedding at October Oaks, and I truly could not have done it without her. Day-of coordinators help the actual wedding day run smoothly while you are not around. Remember that you will be busy all wedding day getting ready, doing photos, and getting married! You will need someone who can set up your decorations, direct everyone on where to go, handle any issues that come up, and make sure that everything is how you want it. Many venues include a day-of coordinator, so make sure to check that before booking one!

Use Wedding Planning Tools to Stay Organized

A binder, a book, an app, an excel spreadsheet. Which tool(s) you choose comes down to personal preference. Somewhere that you can keep everything in the same place is all you need.

You can get wedding planning books and binders at pretty much any major bookstore. There are also tons of options on Amazon. You will need something to keep all of your papers in. It could be as simple as a folder, but it will need to be large enough to hold everything. We personally used the knot’s wedding binder, which has helpful tips for each tab! Any other documents, contracts, or papers that we had, we just hole punched and put in there as well.

There are lots of apps and websites that are also easy to use and can be very helpful! You can search for vendors, set up a checklist, and keep your inspiration in one place. Set it up to get notifications for items on your checklist so that you don’t forget! We found several vendors this way, and it helped us to stay organized! The Knot and Wedding Wire are the most common, but there are other options as well, like Wedding Happy and Zola.

Make a Shared Email for you and Your Fiancé

This was one of the simplest and most effective tools we used when planning our wedding. All of our vendor inquiries, contracts, appointments, and communication went through that email. We never lost any documents in the junk folder or mixed it up with a personal or work email.

Having a shared email that both of you can access will be a life changer! Every time you need to both sign a document or review an invoice, it can just be sent to one email. Not to mention, it keeps all of the wedding planning out of your regular personal email. Keeping everything in one place makes the process so much easier.

I also recommend creating a shared calendar with that email. You can set up appointments and reminders for payments due, so you are both on the same page. We still use our shared calendar to this day! As wedding planning continues, you will quickly find that there is lots of information to share with your partner! This way, it is written down and easier to look at together.