Bride-to-Be Blogger Danielle: Managing a Checklist

Right now, Tim and I are at the point in our wedding planning where all the checklist are telling us to do things in the most non-sensical order (is non-sensical even a word? Either way, it seems to fit), and if I didn’t keep my head about it, I’d probably go nuts. I realize these checklists, found online and in wedding planning books, are merely suggestions, but some brides follow them as gospel. To me, though, it doesn’t make sense to send a save-the-date, then book my bridal suite, then block hotel rooms for guests. (Yes, I’ve really seen a list in that order, though I won’t name the site.) Call me crazy, but I would guess that the hotel block should come first, so that you can include the hotel information on save-the-dates for your guests.

I pride myself on being organized — Tim jokes that my spreadsheets have spreadsheets — so I decided to create my own timeline and checklist, using templates that I used for corporate events, but customized for wedding-specific tasks. I’ve rearranged and re-ordered all the tasks listed in the typical wedding checklists and now I feel pretty good about where Tim and I stand in the planning process. Even though we’re doing some tasks simultaneously, we have a system in place. Here’s what we’re working on now:

1. Lodging: Tim and I are looking into both hotels and rental options for guests in Rehoboth Beach. We want to keep everyone close to one another to make it simple to shuttle guests to and from the ceremony/reception site. We have plans to meet with people in a couple of weeks to make some decisions.

2. Stationery: My sister, who was a fine art major, is designing our stationery suite. She’s working on the design/layout and once we have the lodging info we will insert it into the save-the-date.

3. Web site: I’m simultaneously pulling our wedding web site together, and as we get more information, I’m updating it real-time. It will be complete in time to include the link on our save-the-dates.

4. Transportation: Once we have the lodging plans finalized, we’ll begin looking into transportation. Our site is a bit remote, and of course we don’t want anyone to drink and drive, so we’ll provide shuttles of some sort to transport guests to and from the big event.

You would think that all of this is so obvious, and that the online checklists would reflect this sort of common sense. Am I just too nit-picky? Or am I missing an amazing resource somewhere?

Have you been frustrated with wedding checklists that you’ve found online or in planning guides? Have you found a really great one that you can share with all our readers? Or, did you create your own? Please share!

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