Adapted from Ep#15 of the Unbridely Modern Wedding Planning Podcast
Are you feeling like you're drowning in a never-ending sea of decisions and to-do lists?
You aren’t alone.
Because while planning your dream wedding can be an exciting and rewarding journey, let's be honest - it can also be a significant time suck. But with some strategic planning and the latest tech-savvy tools, you can more easily navigate this stage and still enjoy the anticipation of your celebration. Let’s dive in!
Weddings can send even the most organised of engaged couples into a tailspin. Part of the reason behind that is that they aren’t something you have the opportunity to be a part of very often. Even during the most intense “wedding seasons” amongst your family and friendship groups, it’s doubtful that you would have been directly involved in planning more than half a dozen weddings before starting to plan your own big day.
And for many couples, their wedding is the FIRST time they are exposed to the months of list making, decisions, delicate conversations, quotes and seating plans to translate their vision into reality. And not surprisingly, it can come as quite a shock to discover just what is involved in planning and putting together even an intimate gathering for your close friends and family.
But there are solutions! Wedding planning doesn’t have to be overwhelming, and there are ways to simplify and streamline the process. We’re going to take a look at 3 of the biggest hurdles you might come across during your wedding planning; information overload, RSVPs and getting bogged down in the details. AND help you work through or around them.
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Information overload
Wedding planning is all about the coordination and communication of information. And very often, that info comes from dozens of different sources and may need to be shared with several guests, vendors and wedding party members at any given time.
It’s also rare that your wedding planning information (dates, times, styles, contact details, RSVPs etc.) is static - as in, the details often change several times as the planning process progresses. This may mean that you’re needing to update your information frequently and need to have the most updated version available to several people in real time. How do you even begin to keep track of it? With a wedding binder? Or a slightly more advanced cloud-based Word document? Of course, these are possible solutions, but you can already see their shortcomings. What if your binder gets lost or damaged? And how many spreadsheets will you need to record all of your RSVPs, B list invitees, meal preferences, contact details etc.?
This is when a purpose-built program like WedSites really shines.
WedSites is an all-in-one project management platform designed specifically for newly engaged couples planning a wedding to help them with everything, from setting up a wedding website, managing online RSVPs, and keeping track of their wedding to-dos in one place.
But don’t worry you don’t have to be a tech-head to make sense of it. From the very beginning, WedSites was designed as a user-friendly program and designed from the perspective of the newly engaged couple – think intuitive and easy to navigate.
Unbridely wedding planning tip: Right from the start of your wedding planning, you should consider setting up a separate email address for all your wedding-related communications.
Why?
Well, down the track, when you want to have a break from all things wedding planning, you can easily switch off notifications for your wedding planning email address. It also helps keep everything separate from your personal or work inboxes. Having a wedding-specific email is also great when you want to sign up for wedding blogs, expos, competitions and vendors while planning your big day. There will come a time when your big day has passed, and you no longer want to get these in your inbox. And a separate email address makes this easy.
2. How to stay on top of your RSVPs (and not lose your mind)
There really is something different about the way we do weddings. I mean, in our everyday lives, who would ever choose to send a snail-mail letter over an email, DM or text? Not many people! Yet as soon as you start planning your wedding, suddenly the idea of posting dozens (or maybe even hundreds) of invitations is something that you’re really interested in.
And this is where you can save heaps of time and save some significant bucks in the process too.
Posting RSVP cards costs money, and if your budget is already tight, these unnecessary costs could mean that you need to sacrifice something more meaningful.
And we haven’t even gotten to the worst part yet – waiting for them to be sent back. Some of your guests will inevitably forget - it always happens. By asking your family and friends to RSVP online, you’re reducing your costs, making it easy for them AND easy for you to remind them if they do forget.
Unbridely tip: If you're using a wedding website like WedSites, all the RSVP information is automatically stored. So you don't need to physically count the RSVP cards and manually update your spreadsheets. It's all there for you, saved in the cloud in real-time.
3. Use the 80/20 rule for ALL the details
Haven’t heard of Pareto’s Principle? This nifty little phenomenon states that 80% of your results come from just 20% of your efforts. In other words, you can achieve the most significant impact with the least amount of work. Sounds pretty sweet, right?
It's like the universe's way of saying, "Hey, you don't have to do it all, just focus on the stuff that matters."
So, next time you're overwhelmed with your never-ending to-do list, remember the 80/20 rule and let it work its magic.
How does this apply to wedding planning? Trust me, those final few weeks before your big day is ALL about the details. The 80% might be locked in and organised (think venue, dress, catering, honeymoon, flowers, celebrant etc.), but the million and one tiny details that make up the last 20% is what those final weeks become about.
So having a plan ahead of time can make all the difference to your energy and stress levels coming up to your wedding day. As a soon-to-be-wed, you shouldn’t need to be tying up loose ends and answering your guests’ million and one questions.
The easiest way to plan for this is – you guessed it – by keeping the info your guests will need online! A thorough FAQ section accessible to all your guests (and relevant vendors and suppliers) can quickly answer common questions like “What's the dress code? Is there a gift registry? How do I get to the venue? When do I need to arrive? Are kids allowed?” Now everyone will have access to the same information, easily and at ANY time, without having to hassle you. Genius!
But that’s not all a great wedding website can do.
Its power isn’t just in the lead-up but it can also be super helpful on the wedding day itself.
Having an order of events helps your guests know what to expect, when and where. Don’t underestimate how these little things can mean the difference between guests having an enjoyable or anxious day. Feeling lost, not knowing what’s happening next, or where they need to be, can easily distract your guest from appreciating everything that you have spent so much time, money and effort planning.
Unbridely tip: Your new mantra needs to be “Go to the wedding website, find everything there.” This is ESPECIALLY true for sometimes awkward conversations such as “Are kids allowed”. Rather than having that conversation with each person, put it on your wedding website so people can get the information there.
Now you’ve got some tools in your toolkit for dealing with information overload, RSVPs AND those pesky details too! Knocking over these three big wedding planning time sucks will equip you to tackle the rest of your planning confidently and efficiently.
And remember, you’re planning your wedding, so don’t forget to have fun! Planning your wedding should be a joyous and exciting experience, not a stressful one. So take a deep breath and step away from it every now and then to keep perspective. After all, your big day will be here before you know it.
If you’d like to try WedSites to create your own wedding website, you can sign up for free at www.wedsites.com. And if you’d like to take advantage of any of the planning tools on the platform, you can get 10% off any of the paid plans by using the code UNBRIDELYPOD
