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Wedding Planning Checklists, Timelines, Schedules, Itineraries and Outlines for the Ceremony and Reception
by
Michelle Ellingsworth
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Wedding Planning Checklists, Timelines, Schedules, Itineraries and Outlines for the Ceremony and Reception
by
Michelle Ellingsworth
Copyright 2011 Michelle Ellingsworth
http://www.sane-wedding-planning.com/
michelle@sane-wedding-planning.com
Published on Smashwords
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Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
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Wedding Planning Checklists, Timelines, Schedules, Itineraries and Outlines for the Ceremony and Reception
Contents
Chapter 1 - Why Read This Book?
Chapter 2 - What No One Ever Tells You: The Seven Real Keys to Wedding Planning Success
Chapter 3 - Make Your Wedding Planning Timeline
Chapter 4 - Sample Wedding Planning Timeline
Chapter 5 - Make Your Wedding Gift Registry Checklist
Chapter 6 - Sample Wedding Photography Checklist
Chapter 7 - How to Make Your Wedding Day Timeline / Schedule
Chapter 8 - Sample Wedding Day Timeline / Schedule
Chapter 9 - Make Your Wedding Day Checklist and Back-up Plan
Chapter 10 - The Wedding is Over, What Still Needs to be Done?
Chapter 11 - Name Change Checklist
Chapter 12 - Planning the Wedding Ceremony and Reception: Checklist of Wedding Traditions
Chapter 13 - Planning Your Wedding Ceremony: Tips and an Outline
Chapter 14 - Planning the Wedding Rehearsal and Wedding Rehearsal Dinner
Chapter 15 - Planning Your Wedding Reception: Tips and an Outline
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Chapter 1 - Why Read This Book?
Where are you right now with your wedding planning? Concerned about throwing a wedding bash in this economy? Worried it will take too long? That you’ll go over budget and into debt?
You’re not alone. Each year 2.2 million couples in the US get married and more than half will do it all wrong – debt, crisis, and regrets.
In the creation of my website and books, I surveyed recently married women from all over the country and noticed some consistent wedding planning problems.
The Big Ones: Most couples don’t properly plan or budget for their wedding. And many couples who do budget have trouble staying within their budgets.
They may diligently search online for wedding planning and money saving tips, but the very nature of the internet thwarts them. How a web site gets ranking from search engines (Google) makes researching a subject like budget wedding planning completely insane.
Let me explain. For Google to rank a web page high in search results there must be a density of keywords related to a very specific subject. Therefore, you only get a narrow slice of information per page (even I have to do this on my site). Not to mention that websites often break long articles into very short slow-to-load bits so you’ll search deeper into their site and be exposed to more advertising.
You could spend hours researching on the internet only to gather a few small nuggets of information. And when it comes to saving money while planning a wedding, you need a lot of information.
Why read this book? If your wedding is not well planned, you will waste time and hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.
Wedding Planning Checklists, Timelines, Schedules, Itineraries and Outlines for the Ceremony and Reception gives you samples as templates and shows you how to make your own wedding planning timeline, your wedding day schedule and checklist, your wedding photography checklist as well as post wedding checklists.
You will also learn important tips for registering for gifts and find sample outlines and tips for planning your wedding ceremony and reception.
Please enjoy the bonus tips on planning your wedding rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, bridesmaid luncheon and other events surrounding your wedding.
The new economy has ushered in a new era for weddings – they are less conventional, less expensive, and more personal. What matters most is that you and your guests are relaxed and happy.
This is a good change. With thoughtful planning, you really can have an amazing and memorable wedding day without spending a fortune!
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Chapter 2 - What No One Ever Tells You: The Seven Keys to Wedding Planning Success
The seven points outlined below are not sexy or fun, but – beyond the obvious importance of staying organized -- they are the foundation to your wedding planning success.
1: Make a Budget. 50% of engaged couples start planning their wedding without a budget. This is the biggest mistake you can make. Couples who do not make a working budget suffer a great deal of stress and risk going into debt.
2: Frontload the process. Hustle the most at the beginning, don’t make the mistake of thinking “oh, we’ve got time.” The first 6 weeks of the wedding planning process should be busier than all the others combined.
3: Vet your vendors. This is a very, very important step frequently skipped by engaged couples. You can avoid some real wedding horror stories by being thorough in your search for vendors.
4: Stick with your decisions. Small tweaks to the menu and to flower arrangements can be made up to a few weeks before the wedding, but making major changes because you feel stressed and are second guessing your decisions will do nothing but create more chaos and potentially open your wedding day up to a lot of problems.
5: Use your time wisely. Become an efficient wedding planning machine. If you don’t set aside structured time to work on the wedding each week, especially at the start of the planning process, you and your fiancé will suffer unnecessary stress later.
6: Think about the relationship you want to have with your relatives beyond the wedding day. Do the best you can to keep the peace with family on both sides while planning the wedding. You and your fiancé will have a long life together, don’t start it with family resentment and drama.
7: Have realistic expectations. Be very, very realistic about your ability to put the time and effort into wedding planning. Don’t set yourself up to fail by planning a DIY wedding or an overly complicated wedding you actually have the time or resources to pull off.
It is better to have a simple but well executed wedding than an extravagant but disastrous day.
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Chapter 3 - Make Your Wedding Planning Timeline
A wedding planning timeline is necessary to keep you organized and moving forward toward your wedding day.
Second only to making a budget, a detailed working wedding timeline – called a production schedule by professional event planners - is key to your wedding planning success.
This comprehensive wedding planning schedule is the place where you will keep all your tasks in the order they need to be accomplished. It may grow to be pretty long, but all your important wedding plan info will be in one place and that will do a great deal to simplify the very complicated process of planning a wedding for you.
Think of your timeline/schedule as your security binky.
If you wake up one day with a knot in your stomach feeling stressed, like things could be spinning out of control, check your wedding timeline / wedding planning schedule for the big view of where you’ve been, where you are right now and where you’re going.
This will give you major peace of mind.
Keep it simple.
No two weddings will have the same schedule, so working off generic fill-in-the-blank checklists or worksheets you found in a glossy bridal magazine really won’t be all that helpful. You must make your own schedule.
Remember to review and update your schedule each time you make or change an appointment, take on a new project, or sign a contract with a vendor.