Wedding 101

How to Keep All Your Wedding Stuff Organized

Customize your own event checklist with due dates, personal reminders, and timelines for all your wedding to do’s.
Have you noticed that the more you plan your wedding, the more random stuff you start to accumulate? As you check things off your to-do list, things are going to start arriving at your door — favors, decorations, and random knick-knacks. Not to mention, all those registry gifts! To avoid drowning in a sea of big day items, here are six ideas for getting organized.

 1. See what you can hand off to vendors. 

While it’s certainly not expected or a requirement, some kind vendors will hold onto your things leading up to the wedding. So rather than keeping your cake topper in the closet, you can ask your baker to hold onto it. Your venue might be able to keep small decorations on hand, your planner could keep your personalized champagne glasses, and your florist can hold onto the special vases you picked out for the ceremony. While not all vendors have the capacity to store your stuff, some might — it can’t hurt to ask. 

2. Create a file system. 

Half the items you’re going to accumulate are paper, like contracts, receipts, timelines, budgets, and more. These are crazy important documents — do not let them get tossed out! As soon as you start noticing a pile of paper, do yourself a favor and form some sort of organization system. Maybe it’s a fancy binder with color-coded dividers, perhaps it’s a section in your filing cabinet, or it’s just a simple folder. It doesn’t matter exactly how you do it — just do something! 

3. Delegate stuff to your wedding party or family. 

Your bridesmaids and groomsmen likely won’t appreciate being asked to store 15 centerpieces, but most can handle a few small things. If you can, hand off things to the people who will deliver or use them on the wedding day. For example, your ushers can keep the programs. If your mom’s the one delivering the welcome bags to the hotel, store them at her house. Hopefully you can trust your friends and fam to bring their designated items on the big day — but you never know what could go wrong, so only part with essentials like your wedding bands. 

4. Keep transportation in mind. 

Sure, your 100+ favors might be sitting in your home for a few months — but eventually, you’re going to have to transport them to the wedding venue. Plan ahead and store them in an easy-to-move container. Cardboard boxes, plastic storage containers, and paper bags are easy options, but you could even store small items in a suitcase or duffle bag. 

5. Organize by location or time needed.

 It wouldn’t make much sense to bring your cake-cutting knife to the ceremony space. Ultimately, you’ll end up losing things that are brought too many places. Instead, organize things by the location they’re going to: the ceremony and reception spaces, or the time of day you’ll need it. Remember, you’ll put your dress on pretty early, but you won’t need those dancing shoes until later. It’ll be so much easier to keep track of everything. 

6. Don’t get too ahead of yourself.

 If you’re a master planner, you might feel an itch to square away absolutely everything well ahead of time — like packing your honeymoon bag six months out. While getting everything in order can keep you sane, being overly organized (or striving for an impossible level of perfection) can just stress you out more. Just enjoy the ride and rest assured that everything will go off without a hitch. 
Kristin Doherty
About The Author
Writer and Content Strategist. 
More like this
Plan your wedding like a pro.
Follow
Join our newsletter: