Sweet Melissa

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Wedding Series Part 4 – Monster Spreadsheet

Get ready for the MONSTER SPREADSHEET! This post is where you’re going to see how crazy I actually am with organization and spreadsheets! This screams YELLOW in a million ways! I mean, just look at all the tabs I have going on at the bottom.
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Have I scared you yet?  Let’s start at the beginning…

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Budget

I came across a really great list of suggested budgets for a wedding and decided to put it into a spreadsheet where I could keep track of the suggested amount, the estimate we were given by each vendor, the actual cost and who paid for it. Along the right side I also added a list of who typically pays for what in a wedding. I didn’t use all of the suggested items and we didn’t follow who pays for what exactly, but I kept these lists to keep track of what we were doing.

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Bridal Party

I used this to keep track of the gifts we purchased as a “thank you” to our bridal party.

Save the Date

We sent out save the date magnets to our close friends and family. A lot of our guests had to travel to the wedding so this provided enough advance notice to “save the date”. This tab is a list of names and addresses that we used to easily print envelopes.

Rehearsal Dinner

This is a list of everyone we invited to the rehearsal dinner so we could keep track of the final count to give to the restaurant. We invited our bridal party (and dates), our parents, and a few out of town guests (but not all).

Guest List

This is the MONSTER tab within the MONSTER spreadsheet! The guest list is where we made a list of everyone we wanted to invite to the wedding (including lists from both of our parents). Included in this spreadsheet is:

  1. Relationship – We kept track of who the “inviter” was for each guest. For example, if it was my friend I would put my name, if it was my parent’s friends I would put my parent’s names, if it was mutual friends (like from college) I would put “college”. This made it easier to look at and figure out our table seating.
  2. RSVP # – I numbered every response card before we mailed invitations and gave each guest a matching number. Sometimes people send their response cards back and forget to write down their name so you don’t know who it came from! Using numbers makes it easier to check when this happens.
  3. Titles – We had a whole range of people with different titles (other than your typical Mr. and Mrs.). We had doctors, judges and unique family set ups.
  4. Name, Address, City, State and Zip – This is exactly as it sounds. We had someone print our invitation envelopes for us and she used a spreadsheet. Keeping track of the information this way made it easy to send to her.
  5. # Invited – This is the total number of people invited per line. For example, Mr. John Smith would be 1, but Mr. and Mrs. John Smith and Family could be 4.
  6. # Attending – This is the total number of people who RSVP’d “YES!”. We used this for our final count.
  7. Bridal Shower – I kept track of the gifts I received for my bridal shower. This made it easier to write thank you cards after.
  8. Wedding gift – I kept track of the gifts we received for our wedding. This made it easier to write thank you cards after. I also like to refer to this when we are invited to someone else’s wedding.

Escort Cards

We had someone print our escort cards (same woman who did our invitations) and she used a spreadsheet so this was an easy way for us to keep track and send to her for printing.

Seating Chart

I chose to keep track of our seating chart electronically. You can read about it here.

Others Weddings

This is a list of all the weddings we attended that took place before ours. I kept track of how much we spent on hotel, travel and gifts.

CHCC List

This is a checklist of everything I wanted to bring to the venue for the wedding and everything I wanted to make sure I got back after the wedding. This included things like party favors, picture frames, bathroom baskets, cardholder and a sign in book.

Bathroom Basket

I made a list of what I wanted to put into bathroom baskets. This made shopping for these items a lot easier.

There is no right or wrong way to keep a monster spreadsheet if you think this is right for you. I found it easier to keep track of everything if it was all in one place. You can make up your own lists and tabs as needed.

Wedding planning can be stressful but it doesn’t have to be! If you find ways to organize your thoughts and ideas in the beginning, they will turn into plans and contracts at the end. I hope the systems I showed you so far are helpful resources. They take a little time to setup and put in place, but once you have your binder or spreadsheet it makes the rest of the process so much easier. Happy wedding planning!

Check out my other Wedding Series posts:

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