Being the Organized Bride

After a fantastic flower consultation yesterday, I feel the need to discuss bridal organization with you. Firstly, I can completely empathize with the brides and information / inspiration overload that happens during the planning process. With bridal blogs, magazines and etsy, its so easy to find a million and one ideas that you want to incorporate into your wedding day. While not all of them will be used {that's why there are vow renewals and lots and lots of dinner parties at your home after the wedding to use them!}, you need to come up with an organized way to keep everything together. While Hazel+Russell have a fantastic bridal binder {as well as all the other retailers that sell them}, its not necessary to purchase a made for wedding planning binder. You can easily create your own.

You'll want a binder that is pretty roomy, some page dividers with tabs and some dividers with pockets. Since your binder will be "wedding information central", you're going to want to keep it safe. Print out copies of all the contracts you receive, plus any proposals or other information that a vendor gives you. Use the tabs to make a section for each vendor category: Ceremony, Venue, Florist, Catering, Planner, Song lists etc. This is also a good place to keep any swatches of fabric you've received for your dress, bridal party attire, linens etc.

Now, what to do with all those 1000's of inspiration images you've collected? Print them out or cut them out and either make a collage for different genres {dresses, flowers, place cards, transportation, signs etc} and then file away or just organize each print out and file them away. This way, you'll always have your inspiration available for any meeting you may have with a vendor. Showing any vendor {rentals, cakes, florist etc} any visual aids is BEYOND helpful. Words can only be so descriptive, images can really hit home what you are looking for.

Happy Organizing!