Where to start?

Congratulations! You are in a loving relationship, he proposed, and now you are going to plan your dream wedding. So, where do you start? Should you find the dress first or book the venue? Should you recreate your parent's wedding or exchange vows underwater? Planning the perfect wedding is, to understate it, overwhelming. If you do not have the cash to hire a professional wedding planner, my advice would be to buy a wedding planner and organizer. Trust me, it will be the best thirty dollars you have ever spent.

My friend Misti got married a year before I did, and her engagement gift from me was an organizer. Dana, my maid of honor, is marrying in the spring and she received one as well. Practically on the day Greg proposed, I went to my local Barnes and Noble and started browsing the wedding section for myself. There are many styles and types available. Some of them are simply a file organizer for all of your receipts and contacts, others will lead your step by step down a time line for stress-reduced planning. I settled on The Complete Wedding Planner & Organizer. This book is three-ring bound with a hole punch included to add brochures and print outs that you gather along the way. There are suggested wordings for programs and invitations, money saving tips, and inspirational photos.I chose this one because it was broken down into logical sections, had a budget planning tool and timeline for planning, and lists of questions to ask various vendors. It later makes a very nice keepsake, or you can share it with another bride to help reduce her legwork.

I found the vendor interview sections most helpful. They are set up spreadsheet-style, with a list of questions down the left hand side, and headers across the top where you can list each vendor. The types of questions are "Are you insured" and "Do you have a corkage fee" As you interview, you can record responses in the column. After two or three interviews, you now have a side-by-side comparison of what value you get for each. This makes it really easy to make informed decisions. Interestingly, everyone I interviewed for the wedding remarked that this was the toughest interview they had ever had from a bride. The questions really dig deep into the business end of booking a vendor, and help you to ensure they are a right fit for your dream wedding. Being thorough on the front end can potentially save you heartache later.

Equally practical is the budget planning tool. The authors help you take your bottom line number, and divide it according to what percentage of your budget should be allocated to each item. For example, your attire should be ten percent of the overall budget, but the flowers should be about nine percent. If you start with a price range of what you want to spend FIRST, then divide it out according to this list, you will quickly know how much you can afford for photography and stationary. This is quite helpful when you are shopping around, reducing the chances of falling in love with invitations that are twenty dollars each when you can only afford two dollars per invite.

Happy planning is organized planning. Take my advice and invest in an organizer!