My Love Affair with Excel

I'll admit it, I have just the slightest addiction with Excel. It all started with a job where I claimed to have a little more Excel knowledge than I actually did. Hmm. But the white lie got me in the door and I soon became entranced with tracking everything with spreadsheets.

So just days after Mr. Stiletto and I got engaged, it came as no surprised that we already had a spreadsheet going for creating our guest list and managing details about possible reception venues. However, there was a slight twist to our spreadsheet happiness - Google Docs. While we easily maneuver within Google Docs because we have gmail accounts, for those of you who don't you can simply set up a Google account and you'll be ready to spreadsheet.

Mr. S and I share our spreadsheets with each other, so we can both have access to them anytime, anywhere...and even at the same time! There's even a chat feature within the document so we can chit chat back and forth as we make changes to the document. Genius!

Things started off pretty innocent at first. The document is simply called "Wedding Budget." And yes, it started off that way, but it has quickly balooned from there to a whopping 12 worksheets. Ahh!

Snapshot of our "budget"...but not a true one, just a mish mosh of what my parents are paying for broken down into scenarios of 110 and 120 people...my and Mr. Stiletto's budget is hidden. I'm not divulging too much information here :)

To share with all of you planning brides, here's a list of the worksheets I'm maintaining and accessing each and every day:

1. Current Budget
2. Vendor Contacts
3. Registry Ideas
4. Songs (reception & ceremony)
5. Ways to Involve My Mom in Planning
6. Quotes (from different vendors)
7. Dates (sending invitations, RSVPs due, etc)
8. Hotel Block Information
9. Needs - Detail (each item of ceremony and reception that needs purchasing)
10. Reception Timeline
11. Random Numbers (I have no clue what this is, but it's on there!)
12. Vendor Payments (schedule of what is owed to whom and when)

A tad obsessive? Possibly. But it keeps things in order and maintains my sanity to some degree. It's also great, as we're looking for rehearsal dinner locations (for example) I can throw a link and price quote into the spreadsheet, along with the preferred contact at that location, and I don't have to search for the information later on.

As I'd mentioned, I also have a spreadsheet for our wedding guest list, but we keep that separate so that we can share it with my MOH, easily providing her with contact information for everyone to be invited to the bridal shower. When we're ready to send out save the dates and the invitations, we can easily download the document and run a merge!

Anyone else out there find a good way to manage information as they continue to plan?