Staying organized for the busy bride

By Guest Blogger Rosanna Hardin

Congratulations, you’re engaged! Though this should be the most exciting time of your life, once the initial excitement wanes, you may start to notice the effects of stress creeping up on you.  But not to worry! There are numerous ways for busy brides to stay organized and make it through the planning process unscathed.

1.      Task Calendar

Your task calendar is quickly going to become your new best friend, and it will remain so throughout the course of your engagement. If you’re already a date-book queen, even better! I recommend having monthly checkpoints throughout your engagement.  At the beginning of your month, make a list of everything you want to accomplish over the next thirty days – you can find helpful lists of suggested tasks broken up by month on the Internet. Over the course of the month, consult your list daily. Even if you only finish a small task like calling to make an appointment with a vendor one day, you’ll be surprised how those seemingly menial tasks add up and take a lot of stress off you in the long run.  

2.      Wedding Email

Over the course of your engagement, your going to be handing out your email left and right.  Set up an email address especially for your wedding. Make sure your account allows you to organize emails into individual folders labeled “DJ” or “Caterers.” It’s a small tip, but it will be a huge organizational help.    

3.      Finding reliable sources

Naturally, your first inclination when looking for inspiration will be browse the Internet, and you’ve probably already noticed that there are about a bazillion wedding-related web sites out there.  Many brides get caught up spending hours browsing these sites, which can be a major strain on the time-crunched busy bride.  We recommend narrowing your search by using specific search terms.  Think about what’s important to your wedding.  Do you want your wedding to be eco-friendly? Are you looking for inspiration for specific colors or theme? Set a few Google Alerts for your specific search terms, and rather than spending hours wading through wedding sites, let Google bring relevant sites right to your inbox. And don’t forget to make sure they’re going to your wedding email account!

4.      Go Digital

Having everything online means that you can access it from anywhere: work, home, iphone etc. Also, keeping an inspiration board online allows you to save pictures and notes when you find them (keeping your organized now), and allows for easy emailing to vendors, bridal party members of family. Online is also more space efficient.  Accessing everything on your phone or laptop is a lot easier than lugging around a huge paper planner (not to mention more eco-friendly).

5.      Choose Wisely

When it comes to choosing your maid of honor, things get tricky. Usually brides pick their best friends to be their MOH, but choosing your MOH is a much bigger decision than choosing someone based on how long you’ve been friends.  This person will be with you through every step of your engagement, and she’ll be your main source of aid when it comes to bridal tasks.  So, before you choose, ask yourself these questions: Is she reliable? Will she realistically be able to balance the duties of being MOH with her own busy schedule? Is she generally an organized person? If the answers are no, you may want to consider someone else for the job.

Good luck and happy planning!

Rosanna

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Rosanna Hardin is a writer for My Wedding Workbook, the online wedding planner software for do-it yourself brides, and My Wedding Workbook Pro, the premier wedding planning software for wedding professionals.