Weddings are big events and you only want to have one of them. They take a lot of planning to do right. Unless you're hiring a wedding planner you trust implicitly to make all decisions for you, you're going to have to find away to organize your thoughts, preferences, and choices.

You Do Need a Wedding Binder

There are just too many moving parts in planning a wedding for you not to have all your information in one central binder. This is where you can put all your notes, photos, and magazine cut outs.

You'll want to organize your binder into usable,meaningful sections. Different professionals and past brides will insist you must have certain sections, but you need to use an organizational structure that makes intuitive sense for you. After all, you're the one has to find the information once it's in the binder.

This means if you think by subject, you might want all food related issues in a single section, like reception catering, pre-wedding event restaurant options, and the cake grouped together. However, if you tend to think by event, you might want separate sections for each discrete event, such as ceremony, reception, and rehearsal dinner.

However you organize your binder, there are some specific sections that are worth having regardless of how else you organize it. These sections are:

1. Vendor contact list

2. Guest list

3. High level planning calendar with key milestones

4. Itineraries

5. Contracts

Incorporate Your Wedding Planning Calendar and Task List with Your Regular One

Everyone will recommend that you keep a wedding planning calendar and task list. This is great advice. However, many people keep these entirely separate from their regular day-to-day calendar and errand list. This is a mistake.

You will have a separate master wedding calendar and task list. This is part of your binder. However, you don't want to carry your binder with you everywhere. In addition, if you don't keep your wedding planning and regular calendars in synch, you'll quickly find that you've overbooked or overburdened yourself.

When you make a specific appointment or deadline for your wedding, put it into your regular calendar as well. This way, you're less likely to forget it or schedule yourself with a conflict.

Delegate

When you plan a wedding, you are running a little enterprise. Good leaders know how to delegate. First, the mental relief of knowing you have people helping you will be immeasurable in making it easier for you to do the rest of your tasks. Second, as a practical matter, you're not going to be able to do it all yourself. Accept that.

If you're concerned about entrusting other people, consider just delegating tasks that don't require decision making. For example, you and your fiance should go to the cake tasting yourselves. However, you can ask a friend to pick up dresses or relatives.

Remember, your wedding is a joyous occasion. While wedding planning will inevitably have its stressful moments, it should also be part of the fun.