How To : Wedding Binder

HAPPY MAY!! Spring is here! If I have to choose between Spring and Summer (AKA Hot and Hotter in Alabama) then I choose Spring. It’s like leftovers when you’re a broke college student, It’s not my first choice but I’ll take what I can get. With Spring comes “Wedding Season.” Especially in May, weddings start popping up basically every weekend. So, I figured there’s no better time to start my wedding series! I will post more wedding related content. I planned my wedding essentially on my own and we managed to throw a banging wedding for less than $5,000!

If you’re one of the many people who’s currently planning a wedding, let me begin with begin with I know what you’re going through. Planning a wedding can be overwhelming. There are a million things to juggle at once and you still have to remember to “enjoy the process.”

The saving grace throughout the entire process was having everything where it was supposed to be when I needed it. I tried to keep everything organized and easily accessible in case others needed to use something. First and foremost was my wedding binder. My binder was where I kept everything wedding related from inspiration, to the guest list and so on. Having my wedding binder made it easy for me to meet with vendors and have all of my information with me. It made it easy for me to show the seating arrangement to people or the decor.

So, I’m going to go over everything that I had in my binder. Keep in mind that you have to make this work for you and your wedding. I started with a plain two-inch binder and made a simple cover, made labels for the section dividers. Each of the categories below is a separate divider or section that I had inside the binder.But first, pictures! If you’re kinda nosy like me you probably want to see pictures! I honestly just liked seeing people’s ideas come to life.

Inspo board

At the very beginning of my wedding binder, I created a mini inspiration board. It was a collage of decor styles, color palettes and more. This way, every single time I opened my binder I was reminded of what my vision was for the wedding. It was also a bit motivating to be reminded of what I was doing so I didn’t get caught up in the day to day.

Next, I had a table of contents so again, the binder was easy to navigate for me and others.

Contact List

This list contained all the key people I might need to contact. I had the names and phone numbers of my wedding party, my vendors, the venue coordinator and my officiant

Schedules

I had two types of schedules. I’d printed out calendars for the months leading up to the wedding with all of my deadlines and events. I also had a day of timeline. The day of timeline was a rough draft and the more information I got, I made the timeline more specific.

To Do List

This was my comprehensive to do list. It had everything for every possible situation. It was really easy to make a comprehensive list because I had an account on mywedding.com. Mywedding.com lets you go through and select all the things you need to do and then it can be printed into a checklist.

Budget

I did my budget list the same way as my to-do list, I went on mywedding.com and filled in a premade spreadsheet to fit my wedding’s budget. It was simple and easy. If you don’t have the website it’s just a matter of filling in an excel or numbers sheet with the costs you’re expecting.

Guest List

For my guest list section, I had the names, numbers, and addresses of everyone who was invited. They were grouped my families if children or spouses were included. Then placed in alphabetical order. Last, I color coded the list, highlighting the bridesmaids in one color, the groomsmen in another and family with reserved seating in another. This way if I had to look for something, count the guests, whatever, I could quickly know who was who.

Seating Arrangements

If you have seating arrangements you can place a scaled version or information about seating so that you have it available to make changes or what not.

Wedding Party

Because my wedding was mostly planned by me and my husband, we had to delegate small tasks to people helping us out, mainly in the wedding party. I kept all of my information about my wedding party together. It included contact information, clothing sizes, and duties. If you decide to have this section just customize it to what you need to have handy for your wedding party.

Vendor Section

It the section for my vendors I dedicated a page to each vendor. On the page, I simply typed out the point of contact for the vendor and their information, how much they were to be paid, how much was already paid and deadlines.

Ceremony information

I wanted a place that I could keep just extra tidbits relating to the ceremony that didn’t necessarily fit anywhere else. Ultimately I mainly kept decor information and layouts here. In particular how my seats and buffet and everything would be laid out. The space I had was wide open so I was able to set it up how I wanted. This section was of huge use but I still liked having it.

Reception information

The reception section contained the same type of information as the ceremony section, but obviously pertaining to the reception.

Zipper bag for receipts

I found this to be incredibly handy. When you’re planning a wedding you tend to buy things and it was helpful to keep the receipts all in one place in case I needed to return anything. I also was able to keep the receipts for transactions such as down payments.

Thank you’s

I kept a spreadsheet in order to keep track of gifts, or donations from my bridal shower, vendors, gifts from the registry, etc. When we received something I took their name, what they gave or did for us, and their address to send a thank you after the wedding. I added wedding gifts to the list after the wedding.

Honeymoon

The honeymoon section is really useful if you are going on your honeymoon soon after your wedding. More likely than not, you’ll need to plan both your wedding and honeymoon simultaneously. This section is perfect for keeping hotel and flight information, itineraries or ideas for things to do. It’s also somewhat motivating to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

My wedding binder was my saving grace at times. Use your binder as a tool to help you keep from going mad, but also remember that nothing is more important than enjoying a say this special. Whether it all comes together or it all falls apart, you have the person who means the most to you by your side.

Don’t forget that this is the first in a series of wedding related posts that I will be doing! So keep an eye out because I will tell you how we scored a major venue for less than $1000, where I got all of my decor for cheap, how we stayed under budget and more!