Binders and Spreadsheets

I did it. I finally got organized. Exactly one year, one month, two weeks, and four days after our engagement and exactly nine months before the wedding (today!), I did it. And thank goodness.

I had thought about it, even tried it a few times, but nothing really worked. I found millions (okay, about a dozen) of websites offering to help me get organized, but I really need everything in one place, and I need to be able to carry that one place with me, to access it from anywhere. I imagine that in a few years (or even now, for some more connected brides), a laptop/iPad/SmartPhone will be sufficient for wedding planning, but I need more. So I went old school, as teachers tend to do.

You may wonder how on earth I had time to spend almost three full days getting organized, but the answer is simple: My fiance is out of town. I'm surprisingly more productive when he isn't around. But it's so much more fun when he is around, so I guess that's the trade off.

Anyway, back to the organization. I wish someone had told me about all this stuff when I first got engaged, but maybe I wouldn't have taken it to heart until over 13 months later. I was saying that I went old school. Really old school. Like...paper. I already had my "wedding planning binder" that I had toted around from vendor meeting to vendor meeting, but today things got serious. I used my lovely green wedding planning binder (a gift from my amazing matron of honor) and created new tabs that make much more sense to me.

Aren't they lovely?

I also printed all of our invoices and contracts so far in order to have them in one place. I used sheet protectors for the especially important stuff. The tabs are organized by importance (biggest vendors first) and then in order that we'll need them. I finally have a working tool for the wedding planning that I can continue to use for the next nine months.

But that wasn't all. If you didn't know it already, you should learn now that I LOVE spreadsheets. Microsoft Excel didn't know it, but they really created their product specifically for me. I can spend hours upon hours lost in the wonders of Excel spreadsheets. So far, I have the following spreadsheets for the wedding:

• Wedding Budget (estimations, actual costs, amounts paid)
  
• Honeymoon Budget
  
• Master Guest List (including the main list with addresses, the rehearsal dinner guest list, the names to be written on escort cards, the response list, and the table numbers)
• Wedding To Do List (maybe my favorite - including the long-term to-do list from 12 months out, the wedding weekend itinerary, the ceremony schedule, and the reception schedule)
• Wedding Day Contact List

I felt inspired to be so productive because Terry and I have made a lot of wedding progress this week. We are thisclose to booking our honeymoon tickets, making some significant decor decisions, and ordering our save the dates, envelopes, and return address labels. Before we do all that, I needed to make sure we have a firm budget and track all of our spending. Weddings are expensive enough as it is - no need to spend money without at least planning it out!

And now, the fun can continue! Terry comes home tomorrow, and we're planning a field trip to Paper Source in Santa Monica. It might just be my new favorite store. Thanks to a gift card from Heidi and Ed, we can get started on our paper-buying extravaganza!

Scout was very helpful today.

9 months to go...