As a wedding photographer and videographer in Alabama, I’ve had the honor of covering both large and small weddings. Whether you’re planning a wedding with 30 guests or 500 guests, I think you will find this post very helpful. Plus, I have a freebie for you today! In our continuing series, Notes from the Bride, a former bride shares her experience with organizing and planning for all the wedding guests.

Wedding Planning

I wanted to share with you my wedding spreadsheet that I created to track save the date postcards, wedding invitations, RSVP cards, wedding guest details, and bridal shower guests. I’m very much a paper/pencil type of gal, so I printed off multiple copies of this and kept it in my binder. One thing I wish I would have done is to make my list alphabetical, but that’s hindsight for you, right?

Wedding Guest Checksheet

Here’s the freebie: Wedding Invitation Checklist

Let’s quickly walk through my spreadsheet…

• name/address
• STD: save the date…. We found it helpful to send out a save the date postcard to announce our engagement and wedding, though not every bride does this.
• Shower: Bridal Shower… Though not every guest will be invited to your bridal shower(s), I did find it helpful to track the ladies that were invited.
• Invitation… For double checking to make sure you’ve mailed invitations to your guest, especially if stuffing envelopes is a multiple day/night process.
• # on RSVP card…. One helpful tip I heard about when planning my wedding was to put a small number on the RSVP cards.  The purpose was to ensure that I knew who the card belonged to if they had forgotten to write their name on the card. After receiving a few cards without names, this was extremely helpful and worth the extra time.
• Yes/No… Simply put, are they coming to the wedding?
• How many attending?… Especially important for catering numbers.

Tips for Wedding Planning

A few tips for using the Wedding Invitation Checklist:

• I did create a separate spreadsheet of addresses so that I could easily print off labels for mailing.
• If possible, buy yourself a return address stamp that has your married names/address on it.  Five years later, ours is still used on a weekly basis and worth every penny!
• Make sure to send your wedding support staff (ie: photographer, dj, etc) a wedding invitation.

Feel free to use this as a guide or print it off for your own use.

Get the Wedding Invitation Checklist!

Happy Planning!