The Garter Girl’s Blog

It’s finally time to start planning the big day. The excitement is on and you can’t wait to get to the day when it all happens. But there’s a whole wedding to plan in the meantime, and it can get busy. It’s a lot of work, when really the goal is to relax and enjoy this time. The best way to go about stress-free planning is to make sure you plan right. A huge binder with hundreds of tabs containing everything from a guest list to flower arrangements? No, thanks. These days, you can digitize almost every aspect of planning a wedding, from setting up a wedding website to sharing memories with family and friends after the dust has settled, and it makes things a whole lot easier, allowing you to really soak it in and get inspired. These are 8 great ways to save time and energy by going digital with your wedding planning. 1. Wedding website Creating a wedding website gives you a beautiful way to greet people into your world and share the happiness with them. But, it’s much more than that, it’s a practical, easily accessible tool for any needs your guests may have, from time tables to travel plans. Your wedding website acts as a hub for your pre-wedding celebrations and planning. You can let people in on the plan (and hashtag), announce updates, include a link to your registry, and more. I have this amazing blog post where we give you lots of tips for what to include on your wedding website, be sure to check it out. It’s pretty simple, you can learn how to make a wedding website and open one for free with services like Wix in no time, and save a lot of hassle by doing so. 2. Digital planning binder No one really wants to lug around a heavy heap of paper for months. And, it’s definitely no longer necessary. Most note taking apps can achieve everything you’re after, and in a much simpler form, letting you easily find what you need when you need it. Apps like Evernote let you sync everything across all platforms, so you can access your binder on any device. Put up all your notes, lists, inspiration images, contracts and anything you may need, and share them with your partner and co-planners, updating in real time. We have a collection of wedding planning printables and digital download wedding planning binders right here! 3. Shopping lists An essential part of the classic wedding binder is your shopping list. There’s so much that needs to be purchased, and doing it right is essential to ensuring nothing is missing when the time comes. Some note apps have great shopping list features built into them, letting you categorize, tag and add notes to any item. Syncing and sharing with others makes it super easy to delegate shopping duties and track progress, so nothing gets forgotten. Check out our Ultimate Bridal Fashion Timeline right here, where we have a bridal fashion shopping list of everything you need to wear to your wedding - and all of the other wedding related events, like your bridal shower. 4. Budget tracking The budget is, by no means, the fun part of planning a wedding, but it may be the most important one. All those purchases can add up real fast, and it’s never a good idea to lose track of the budget. You can use any budgeting app, but some are specifically designed for wedding budgeting. Keep track of payments and expenses, and make sure you’re not tempted to overspend, while easily sharing and updating from multiple devices and with multiple participants. 5. Online invites While paper invites that arrive in the mail are beautiful and exciting, but they can be unnecessary expense, especially if you are trying to save money. Paper invitations are also time consumer and can have a negative environmental impact. That’s why many couples use online invites like Paperless Post. They’re easy to send and they let you step out of the box when it comes to design and creativity. The fact that they’re much harder to lose and are ensured to find their recipient are great reasons to go digital. Plus, think about how easy RSVP's will be for your guests with an online invitation. 6. Seating Chart Putting together a seating chart for your wedding reception can be fun, if you’re into complex puzzle solving. For the rest of us, we’ll take all the help we can get. Luckily, there is help to be had, using seating apps. Most of these apps offer guest list management, including filters and comments, so you can easily track details, like who is friends with who, who eats what, and who cannot, at any cost, be seated together. This makes this puzzle much easier. As with all categories above, using seating chart apps makes things readily sharable, hassle free and devoid of paper stacks and drawing boards. 7. Registry Setting up your wedding registry to get beautiful, yet useful gifts, is a great way to kickstart your life together. But, with so many options for places to register, the decision making can be overwhelming. For the easiest, all encompassing registering, you can turn to services like MyRegistry, or even Amazon. These let you register just about anything from anywhere. Some apps allow you to browse around the web, swiping on things to easily add them to the list, or even scan things in the real world. Going digital with a wedding registry makes decision making an on-the-fly process, not requiring too much thought. As an added benefit, some registry sites offer discounts, returns and free shipping, so definitely keep it in mind. 8. Photo sharing Congratulations, you’re married! It’s time to share all those awesome memories with your loved ones. Trust me, they’re waiting for them. Sharing photos has long been an online activity, so why not go the extra mile and use a dedicated service? These let you upload your photos, sending relevant links to family and friends for them to save and share further, from any device. The real kicker to wedding photo sharing services, is letting your wedding guests upload their own photos from the big day. Everyone is a photographer these days and getting to see your wedding from their point of view is priceless. The earlier, the better Planning a wedding takes a lot of time and effort. Starting early definitely takes a lot of the stress off when the big day approaches. Getting started is easy, simply choose one of the many wedding website templates from Wix, adjust to your liking and get into the vibe. Remember, we have so much wedding planning advice on The Garter Girl's blog - we are talking helpful and practical tips for how to plan your wedding in the real world. Happy planning! ***** This post was sponsored by Wix.com, a leading cloud-based development platform where you have everything you need to create a fully personalized, high-quality free website for your wedding. The words and opinions are my own. Sponsorships make this blog possible. Thank you for supporting our amazing sponsors, like Wix Wedding Websites.

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