No one tells you about the logistical headaches that arise when planning a wedding. Sure, getting married is incredibly exciting, but what about all the jobs that come with it? Countless decisions about the wardrobe, picking a location, coordinating with vendors, and completing invitation lists, to name a few.
Luckily, you can use many technological tools to simplify the process. Incorporating technology into your wedding plans doesn’t mean a sterile ceremony. Instead, it’s a simple way to take some of the pressure off you and ensure a perfectly arranged celebration.
Wedding Invitations
Before integrated technology, sending out wedding invites was simply a case of picking the right style of paper and tediously handwriting a load of addresses onto envelopes.
Now, couples can utilize intuitive programs like the Adobe Express app to create wedding invitation cards that are both personalized and cancel out repetitive tasks to save time. With a few clicks, you can choose from thousands of beautiful templates to match your design tastes to your ceremony’s theme.
Users of all skill levels can bring any style or aesthetic to life using drag-and-drop editing. Then, it’s just a matter of printing hard copies or sending the cards electronically to save postage expenses by going entirely paperless.
Choosing Venues
The many online virtual tools available greatly simplify the process of selecting the perfect wedding location. We no longer have to deal with traffic jams and inclement weather as we commute to various places to meet with coordinators at set times.
Depending on the facility’s online resources, you may be able to use their website to take a 360-degree tour, navigating through their entire building to view the reception hall or ceremony spaces to learn about the building’s layout and ambiance.
If a specific facility you’re interested in has yet to pre-record a tour, inquire about a live video walkthrough with one of its representatives. Like a live conference call, you can ask real-time questions and request up-close views of each amenity within the building as you record the video for later comparison with other locations.
Choosing Vendors
To make your dream wedding a reality, unless you have considerable resources within your network of family and friends willing to help out, you’ll need the assistance of various service providers who will fill specific roles at your venue throughout the day and night, including a DJ or live band, florist, photographer, MC, valet parking attendant, bartender, waitstaff, chef, or caterer.
Comprehensive wedding planning sites are available, allowing you to select vendors more efficiently by viewing portfolios and reading reviews of the merchants in your locale with just a few clicks. Once you’ve settled on your budget for each service, pick your desired assistant and make a reservation. Many use the same sites for seamless integration, and you’ll have confidence knowing you’re sourcing from a trusted wedding planner site, with the reviews to match.
Funding The Wedding
Various digital tools can help you budget for a spectacular ceremony. This technology allows you to have visual clarity and form a strategic approach to managing cash outflows.
Spreadsheets built from customizable templates specifically written for initial wedding planning are available on both Excel and Google Sheets platforms. Simply input your estimated expenses, track the actual totals spent, and quickly calculate the remaining balances in your budget. The formulas are already configured for you, as are the formatting options to make the data concise.
Use mobile expense tracking apps when you’re on-site touring venues or meeting with potential caterers and photographers. Popular choices are Mint and PocketGuard. These apps allow you to categorize transactions and sync them in real-time with your bank accounts, helping you to stay within your means.
Deciding On Guest Lists
Similar to managing the money side of your wedding, there are tools for tracking the most important element of your ceremony, your attendees. Forget the endless email threads, and get organized with modern online guest-management apps. These brilliant tools let you input names, addresses, and meal requirements in one central place. Popular names include Guest List Manager by The Knot and RSVPify.
These applications allow couples to instantly have clarity on the number of actual attendees, which allows for more effective planning of seating, meals, and the number of wait staff required. This clarity makes your budgeting figures much more finalized, reducing stress levels.
Timeline Management
Finally, if your wedding party is particularly large, and you expect many guests to attend both the ceremony and reception festivities, digital assistance can help create an effective event schedule for the big day. This works especially well if the activities occur at different venues such as your home, a separate ceremony location, and a different reception venue.
Critical schedule intervals include vendor arrivals and setup, ceremony start time, post-union photography sessions, seating charts, and key responsibilities assigned to each vendor. Remember that your day should flow like a party, not a corporate event, so leave windows of time for things to run on and ensure guests don’t feel rushed.
You’ll also need suitable transportation to and from each location, with designated drivers who can ensure safe arrivals. Keeping your information centralised will minimize the chance of anyone being left behind!
Conclusion
We now have the luxury of utilizing digital tools such as Aisle Planner or WeddingWire to effectively plan the entire wedding, and communicate the data to all participants involved. Last-minute snafus are always inevitable, but using planning apps allows you to stay on track by accommodating late arrivals or rearranging the event schedule on the fly.
Consider that thanks to incredible camera quality on modern phones today, you’ll also have access to an entire wedding party of amateur photographers to capture every cherished moment. This, along with the other tips we’ve shared, is a perfect example of incorporating technology into your wedding and the planning process, to use it to your benefit to gain control and ultimately have an even better celebration.
