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Writer's pictureLauren Goodman

The Best Wedding Planning Tools

This week I am spilling the beans on my favourite wedding planning tools that will help you to plan your wedding. Some are free and some you have to pay for but I'm sharing my favourites so that you can decide what you think works best for you!




WITH JOY


So the first wedding planning tool I love to recommend is completely free and I've spoken about it before in a bit more detail, so click here to read more, and that's With Joy, it is a wedding website, website.


This website helps you to create a free wedding website that you can send to your guests to tell them all they need to know about the wedding day. It can also help to send out e-invites, track RSVPs and dietaries, it really is a great free tool to help plan your wedding and super easy to use!




MY FREE WEDDING PLANNING CHECKLIST


Now if you haven't done so already download my FREE, yes FREE, wedding planning checklist. It takes you through 12 months of what to do and when, when planning your wedding which you can just adapt depending on how long you've allowed yourself to plan your wedding.


Download it here!







AISLE PLANNER


I love Aisle Planner, it's actually a professional wedding planning software so if you are an aspiring wedding planning (or in fact a wedding planner) then this one is for you!


I use Aisle Planner to help keep track of all the weddings that we're planning and coordinating in one place! It gives me functions so that I can track the wedding checklist of what we need to do when, I can create a full timeline for my couples, I can add in notes, I can even delegate certain tasks to certain people and share all that with the couple directly.


It also allows you to send out e-invites and track RSVPs and dietaries and you can even create your table plan on there too. It can also create a wedding website for your guests however I feel this aspect of the software is a little basic and you can't personalise it as much as some of the other wedding website platforms.


It then allows me to download everything I need into PDF's or spreadsheets for me to be able to take onsite.


It is quite an expensive tool to use for planning your own wedding but it you're willing to spend the money then it really is worth it. For those of you who are potentially looking for a wedding planner to help coordinate your wedding day then we are looking into offering a package that allows our coordination couples to have access to Aisle Planner for the duration of their wedding planning journey, so if that interests you then look at our coordination services here!




MY WEDDING PLANNING TOOLKIT


Now another paid product that is great value for money is my wedding planning toolkit.


This is a 6 tab spreadsheet that shows you how to split your budget proportionately for each supplier you'll most likely need, it gives you a payment schedule template to help manage those payments. It then helps you keep track of all your supplier contacts, your guest lists, your bridal party and theres even a template to help create your seating plan which will be super helpful for the venue and caterer to know exactly where everyone is sat in case of any dietaries (trust me this is essential!).


And you can get all this for just £7.99! Get yours now!







MY DESIGN BOOK TEMPLATE


Now this is one of our most popular products and it's my design book template.


It essentially helps you to collate your entire wedding design from start to finish into one book. It's uses a free design platform called Canva and it's super easy to use and understand so don't feel like you need to be techie or design focused to be able to use it.


The template is only £19.99 and is the perfect tool to bring your wedding design visions to life, it allows you to add in your colour palette, your inspiration images from pinterest as well as add text to describe all the details and prompt you to think about how you want that part of the day to feel and run.


You can then send this design book to all your suppliers so that they understand the look and style you want to achieve for your wedding, you're all then literally singing off the same hymn sheet!


I've even done a step by step guide on how to use this template which you can watch here.


So if this is what you need (and trust me you do), then get yours now!




PINTEREST & INSTAGRAM


Now these, are of course, both completely free but Pinterest and Instagram are great wedding planning tools for you to use. They are so image heavy that they can help to get those creative juices flowing at the start of your wedding planning process.


Did you know that Pinterest is actually a search engine(!), yes an image search engine which is exactly what you need to find inspiration and get ideas of how you want your wedding to look, of what type of bridal attire your attracted to and even what colour palette you'd like to have.


Just remember, try not too get too sucked in with Pinterest and remember that some images are stylised photoshoots that may not be realistic for your budget, I've talked more on this so watch that video here.


Instagram is then great for images but also for finding suppliers by using localised hashtags for example using #surreyweddingplanner or #surreyweddingcaterer will bring up local suppliers based in surrey... it may sound obvious but use your hashtags wisely! Suppliers are now using Instagram like their shop window so that you can see exactly what they do and how they work. Stories then allows you to follow the supplier so that you can make sure that they're the right supplier for you, it helps builds a level of trust and allows you to get to know them which is much more personal.








So there you have it, my favourite tools for wedding planning, some freebies and some paid products but I use all of these when helping my couples plan their wedding so I hope some of them are useful for you.


Happy Planning



Lauren xx



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Photos by Mindy Coe Photography




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