In the past, wedding planning organization involved big binders and notebooks such as this large spiral-bound notebook and this planning binder. While I know that there is still a role for binders, notebooks, and expandable files in wedding planning (think of all the materials you take home from bridal fairs or vendor consultations), I think a significant portion of wedding planning now occurs online via wedding planning blogs and sites, spreadsheets, and Google Docs.

So short of printing everything out or amassing bookmarked favorites in your browser, how do you organize all the information you’ve obtained and sifted through electronically? Enter Evernote: your virtual accordion file, or your tabbed notebook, or your filing cabinet, or whichever other filing system you prefer.

Evernote basically allows you to collect pictures and text from anywhere on your computer and assign tags to the information so you can easily find it again later. The process is very straightforward and the applications are limitless!

1) Create a free account.

Start by creating your free Evernote account.

2) Download Evernote.

Download and install the appropriate Evernote client for your computer or handheld device of choice. Note that you don’t have to download or install anything if you want to do all your work online via the Evernote site.

3) Install the Evernote Webclipper.

Don’t forget to download the Evernote Web Clipper so you can easily “clip” anything you see in your web browser and “paste” it into your Evernote notebook.

4) Capture ideas and inspiration.

Start capturing everything you’d like to add it via the “+ New Note” button in Evernote. You can copy and paste text you’re reading, highlight and “clip” text and images from websites via the Web Clipper, grab a screenshot, attach pdf’s or other files, or upload photos from your camera. (Note that the free version of Evernote allows 40mb of uploads per month, which is extremely generous if you’re clipping mostly text and web-sized images. If you’re scanning and attaching large pdf files, you may want to consider an upgrade to a premium Evernote account.)

5) Organize ideas and inspiration.

Organize your information by assigning tags to everything you’ve uploaded. For wedding planning purposes, I’d recommend starting with something like the following list of tags:

• ceremony
• reception
• budgeting
• photography
• florist
• catering
• wedding gown
• bridesmaids dresses
• accessories
• gifts
• traditions
• scheduling

You can make your list of tags as exhaustive or as minimalist as you like. The important thing is that you have enough tags that you’re able to instantly make sense of, and find, any information you’ve clipped into your notebook. If you were using a binder, the tags would be the names assigned to each of your binder dividers.

6) Plan Your Wedding.

And that’s pretty much it. Now you can refer to anything you’re looking for by searching for keywords in your text, titles, or tags. Evernote automatically syncs your desktop or handheld device client with your account whenever you’re online so everything is also backed up online in your Evernote account. Check out the Evernote video library to learn more about how to use Evernote to organize your wedding planning – and all your other personal projects.

Image credit: the image in this post is from the Evernote site.

Originally posted on the Jocelyn Chi Photography blog:

Style Me Pretty has teamed up with Google to offer planning tips within a set of 20 wedding planning templates so now while you’re setting up a form to automate collection of addresses for your guest list, you can read about guest list planning tips from Style Me Pretty! You can read more about it as well as their giveaway on their blog over here. See the wedding planning templates from Google Docs here.

Dane Sanders, who is a great photographer from Southern California, and author of The Fast Track Photographer, has a great video on his site of an interview he did with Angel Swanson, the amazing wedding planner from Events of Love and Splendor.

In it, he and a bride talk to Angel about how she works to draw out the personalities of each couple she works with, and incorporates everything about who they are and what they want in their wedding to plan a fantastic, extremely personalized wedding for them and their guests.

Several things I really loved (and learned) from the interview:

1) Start brainstorming and saving or clipping all the images and things that you like and want in your wedding. Think about all the images, things, textures, and smells you’ve saved and think about what you like about those things. When you look at a bouquet that you like, what exactly is it that you like about the bouquet?

2) Go beyond color palettes and motifs. Really think about what overall experience you want to have at your wedding day. Angel recommends thinking about the kind of experience you want your guests to have. I think that’s a great way to start, and I’d add that it’s also a great idea to think about what you want to remember 50 years from now. What things will be still important to you then?

3) Find somebody calm. Most likely, you’re going to run into a lot of stressful scenarios in your planning. Maybe something you ordered hasn’t arrived yet, maybe you find out at the last minute that the groom’s tuxedo isn’t the right size (that actually happened at my wedding!), or the day isn’t going according to the planned time line. Whatever it is, a lot of the details are out of your control and things happen. It’s a good idea to have someone who can stay calm and gracious handling these scenarios when they come up (especially on the wedding day)!

Go check out the video and see what a great wedding planner can do for you!

So you just got engaged and you’ve contacted all of your closest family and friends to tell them the great news that you’re getting married some time in the near future. Now what do you do? Well, I can’t tell you exactly what you should do next because there’s no one right way to plan things, and steps which will work wonderfully for some people just won’t work (or won’t be applicable) for others. So instead, I’m going to give you a handful of topics that you’ll probably want to address at some point during the planning process. The earlier you address these topics, the smoother your planning will likely go. Hopefully, this post will spark some good conversations for you.

1) Budget
Yes, I know. This doesn’t sound too fun and you’d probably rather be shopping for your dress right now. But the fact is, you’re going to have a really hard time deciding on any of the other details before you figure out exactly how much you have to spend. So how do you set a budget? Well, you’ll want to determine where the money’s going to come from. Are you and your fiance paying for the entire wedding? Or do you have friends and family who want to chip in and help financially? Do you already have savings for your wedding or do you need to spend some time saving up for the big celebration?

Another thing that’s really helpful to think about when thinking about budgets is what kind of wedding you want to have – which leads me to the net topic.

2) What type of wedding do you want?
Do you want a big wedding? Or a small, intimate wedding? Or something in between? Typically, the largest cost driver for a wedding is the number of people you have in attendance at the reception since the reception meal is usually based on an estimated headcount, and an extra 50 meals can make a significant difference when you’re talking about $50, $100, or more per meal.

Some other things to think about: Do you want an ethnic wedding or a destination wedding? Each of these has particular costs associated with them, and your budget will be affected by what events, decorations, or other things you’ll need for the type of wedding you’d like.

3) Guest List
Okay, so I guess I already talked a bit about this topic in #2 but now that you’ve talked about your budget, you can make a guess at the number of people that you can afford to have in attendance. Keep in mind that the number of people you invite is typically not the number of people who end up attending your wedding. I’ve heard that generally speaking, 50% to 70% of your invited guests will rsvp in the affirmative. But that percentage can change dramatically with the type of wedding you’re planning. If you’re planning a small, intimate wedding with only your closest friends and family, your attendance percentage is probably going to be significantly higher than the norm. And if you’re planning a destination wedding but inviting everyone you and your family ever knew, it’s like that your percentage will be lower than normal. So when planning your guest list, think about how likely each person is to attend, and factor that into your decision.

4) Set the Date
So now that you have the guest list – or at least the list of people that you really want to attend your wedding, you can set the date! Well, you can always set the date before but it’s nice to be able to set the date after making sure that all the essential people are going to be able to make it to your wedding. For instance, is your second cousin having a wedding on the same date that you want? Does that mean that a lot of relatives would have to choose between the two weddings? Or is your matron of honor due to give birth shortly after that date you’re thinking about?

It’s also important to note, however, that if you have a long list of people you really want in attendance at your wedding, you’re probably not going to be able to please everyone’s schedule so you’ll have to balance that with how soon you want to get married.

5) Location
Now that you have the guest list, you can book an appropriate location to match your style and budget, and fit all the people you want to have at your wedding! Most locations have a limited number of people they can safely seat or serve, so your intended guest list is really helpful in weeding out potential wedding locations. On the other hand, some really gorgeous locations might be too big for the number of people you want to have so you’ll have to keep that in mind as well.

6) All the other details!
This includes all the other things such as your dress, shoes, wedding coordinator, florist, caterer, musicians, invites, favors, etc. This things that go on this list are endless but hopefully, if you have the other 5 topics figured out, you can have fun deciding on these remaining items because you know how much you can spend and you know what kind of wedding you’re going to have. For instance, you’ll be able to make sure that the colors, flowers, and decor you want look good with your venue.

So that’s it for getting started on your wedding planning! I hope these topics help you set the stage for a great wedding planning process, and facilitate some great conversations! Have fun planning, and congratulations again on your engagement!