How To Be Your Own Wedding Planner – Preparing a wedding planning portfolio can be a great way to keep all the ideas you’ve collected in one place where you can easily find them. If you set it up efficiently, it makes planning guest lists, place tables and more really easy.
Here’s how I created my wedding portfolio. I hope these tips help you as much as they helped me.
How To Be Your Own Wedding Planner
As some of you know, I have been engaged for over a year and the big day is about five months away! Since I’m out of school, I’ve been excitedly restarting my wedding planning – so much to do, so little time!
Des Moines Wedding Planner
I’ve been browsing various websites and remembering everything that needs to be done in the next few months (long story short: a lot!) and I came across the Just Lovely blog, where a post explains how to become a great file organizer . . I already had a folder in motion, but it took some organizing and refining to get it working, and the post has some great resources. This inspired me to write my own article detailing all the resources I developed and adapted for my wedding, as well as a short walk through my beautiful portfolio.
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If you’ve already chosen your wedding colors and/or theme, you’ll want something that suits you. Classic white is always an option, or whatever suits your personality and style. I found this super cute butterfly wrap in purple for my wedding and I wanted pretty flowers everywhere on the big day.
You’ll want something fairly thick – for me, a thin binder is never useful. Mine is 1.5 inches and I can’t imagine going any smaller!
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Now the only thing that really bothers me (even though it’s absorbed because it’s so cute!) is that the rings are attached to the spine of the binder. In general, I prefer when the rings are attached to the back cover. When you have ring spines, sometimes the leaves on the back are a little compressed and bent out of shape. However, when the rings are attached to the back cover, they won’t slide off every time you open and close the file.
I didn’t have a divider because… well, I didn’t have a divider handy. Plus, I use page savers and sometimes it’s hard to find dividers wide enough to see the tabs. So instead, I have colorful page guards at the end that mark the start of a new section. So far this has worked well for me.
At the moment, my folder is organized as follows (I tried to arrange it in less than chronological order):
The best part about any wedding planning book, whether it’s the DIY kind or the binder you can buy (I was afraid to buy it because there might be parts that wouldn’t work and I’m a control freak) are the all checklists where you can put all your important planning information and worksheets!
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Online worksheet resources and tons of books you can find and adapt (just sit down at your local bookstore/library, grab a coffee and do the research – it’s fun!). Here are sites I found you might find useful:
This post from A Practical Wedding is another great organizational resource I found in my Google travels.
I have now taken many of these checklists and planning guides, combined and adapted them for my own purposes, and ultimately created my own versions of these checklists that best fit my needs. (I’ll post these checklists at the end once they’re done. Your schedule checklist should be ready any day now.)
Basically all you have to do is work through worksheets and checklists, put together the final details and copies of things like your ceremony script, get rid of anything you no longer need or can’t work with and continue with your planning. amazing wedding. My folder was originally a catalog of photos—pictures I had ripped from magazines over the years, long before I got engaged—to help me begin to figure out what I wanted the final image to look like. Although these photos had already been selected (and none of them were in my magazine stash), I kept the torn photos of wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses. I added it while planning my parents’ wedding.
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Your wedding planning portfolio is ready to take you to the finish line! Now just sit back, relax and watch your wedding. Make sure the health department or another trusted friend is aware of everything on file and then, as a practice, you can hand over the check and trust that everything will go smoothly.
Note: We are a participant in the Amazon Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliate websites. Find a timeline where you can start planning your wedding in six months or less. Skip reading and click the button below to get your free download + our complete 70+ page design guide here.
A week and a half after proposing, most brides are smiling, making phone calls, tweeting the equivalent of 140 heart emojis and doing their best not to glance at their ring finger as they go from work to home (it’s scary, but. .. these weddings. The engagement ring is absolutely stunning when exposed to the sun at the wheel, isn’t it?).
A week and a half after my husband Taylor proposed, I was doing my fair share of all of the above. But among those wedding bells and butterflies, I was also running:
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Not to mention writing a full ceremony script, proposing to my bride, giving the “okay” to wedding dates, and opening marriage papers with my future husband. What is the reason for all this haste? Taylor and I got engaged in March and I set my wedding date shortly after that. For the month of July. Since that year.
“Congratulations, but you’re crazy!” My friends, colleagues, and strangers told me, “You’re going to walk down the aisle naked!” was the general sentiment of many clothing advisers.
I can’t say I didn’t understand where they were coming from. Not only did we try to plan our wedding in six months or less, but we were fully committed to planning our wedding in six months.
According to traditional wedding planning timelines (and like every wedding planning magazine article and/or book ever written), we were about a year behind schedule to hit the ground running. A little scary, to say the least! But that’s not enough to change your mind about saying “I do” any time soon.
Free Wedding Printables
If you decide that a shorter wedding planning schedule is right for you, you’ll need the following tricks in your bag: a clear vision for your big day, the ability to make quick decisions under pressure, and a serious knowledge of wedding planning. When I plan my wedding, the first two elements are checked. However, in the “layout knowledge” department, I was sorely lacking. I’ve bought tons (and tons) of wedding brochures and magazines, but they all assume readers will engage with them for 12-16 months. minimum
I wondered out loud: How can I order a dress nine months in advance when I’ve only been engaged for four months?
Remember this selfish planning stuff is never the answer – I wrote How to Plan Your Wedding in Six Months or Less which includes the timeline below + more!
Set a wedding date: Your hands are tied until you do, so draw a heart on your calendar and start counting down as soon as you can.
Ultimate Wedding Planning Binder Template_ Light Blue Floral
Create a budget – There are two main things to decide: who will pay and how much will they spend? Dream accordingly.
Dream Up Themes – Now that you’ve set your budget, think about the “big picture”. Do you see yourself surrounded by rustic romance on your wedding day, or is the breezy beach scene more your thing?
Choose Your Wedding Party – This team consists of the bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girl(s) and ring bearer(s). Start thinking about their clothes too.
Prepare your guest list – why early? Because the guest list, known as the Rosetta Stone, reveals the secrets of wedding planning language.
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Consider hiring a wedding planner – To avoid fainting injuries, be sure to give them plenty of information on the unconventional schedule.
Find your outfit and order – tip: pull images from Pinterest and look through magazines to narrow down your style choices before you come to the store.
Book your ceremony and reception venues – sign and submit your contracts
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