Borrowed and Blue: Organizing your wedding/Google Docs

Alicia Ann Daw is a film & digital wedding photographer who specializes in New York City and European destination weddings. With over 15 years of experience photographing weddings, she's spent two decades globetrotting to over 37 countries and working with clients around the world. She delivers images that are effortlessly romantic and chic, telling a story about the start of your heritage in a way that will leave you in awe.

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Those of you who know me well know that while I may not be the neatest person in the world, I am highly organized. On any given day you could open my main closet, the one I affectionately refer to as the “cartoon closet” (like when Garfield opens a closet and everything falls out and makes a mountain on top of him), and find a huge pile of….stuff…but, mark my words, the clothes are actually on hangers will be color coded. Left to right. Black, grey, white, ivory, pink, red, orange, yellow green blue purple. I’ve always struggled with finding the proper place for brown. My heels are hung on my door according to heel height, and everything in my iCal is perfectly color coded. I like to refer to myself as an organized mess.

When we jumped into the wedding planning boat, I knew that I would have to take any organizational skill I ever had and pump it up on steroids. We had 4 months to plan and execute a wedding, and I knew going into it that it would be one with a ton of projects and stuff to do. So I spent two entire days in January creating and managing documents that would help us stay on track.

I created a google docs account and from there began saving (and sharing) every document that had anything to do with organization for our wedding. It’s been fantastic because I can update it anytime, as can Adam while he is in Colorado, my parents while they are out shopping, and we all have the google doc app on our phone. It’s fabulous. And it totally tickles my organizational funny bone. So as a little bonus for all you DIY brides out there, and ones who don’t prefer the old fashioned binder and checklists, here are some of the Google docs I found to be extremely helpful. Some are straight from Google and others are one created or heavily modified by me. 🙂

Organize your wedding, How to keep my wedding organized, google docs for weddings

1. The Budget Planner
This has been a lifesaver for me! I started with the figuring out what our entire wedding budget was and breaking it down into sections. This really keeps things in perspective. I also love that I could add or take away any lines in order to customizes it for our wedding…since most weddings don’t have “s’mores bar” listed as a budget item. 😉

2. The To-do List
This is our personal to-do list so by clicking it you are going to get a good glimpse into OUR wedding planning process, complete with who has been on time with everything and who is late on all their dates. Not naming any names…but they are clearly marked in there. To copy this to-do list, open it, click file, and then click ‘Make a copy”….then customize away 🙂

3. The Seating Chart
This seating chart is easy and fantastic. We are actually using a different method because we are doing family style tables so, instead, I have a huge piece of poster board with our tables and then we are using this method for figuring out who is sitting where. Both ideas are great though, depending on your personal preference.

4. The guest list
I WISH I had used this template. Instead, this is the one area I’ve fallen short in because I have 3 word documents, papers laying all around and a google doc….all noting who was on first and second round of invites, who has RSVP’d, who hasn’t, who got an invite and who didn’t. Super confusing. Admittedly, I failed in this area. Use the Google doc above so that you don’t’ make the same mistake. 🙂

Have any of you used Google Docs for planning your wedding? If so, which ones? Would you mind sharing them in the comment box below?

  1. Dani says:

    Thanks for this post! It’s nice to get some current insight into the whole process.

    Excited for you and can’t wait to SEE all about it. 🙂

  2. Annie says:

    We used google docs for wedding budget planning, for keeping track of the guest list, and for planning the orders of service. Definitely recommended 🙂

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