Google Docs Wedding Tools + A Giveaway!
Here’s a little known SMP fact…we use Google for everything. We are actually kind of Google obsessed, from their incredibly easy-to-share and even easier-to-use Google Docs to Google Calendar, which we use for our editorial schedule. The team at Google has served Style Me Pretty well, so our announcement today (which is VERY exciting by the way) is even more thrilling for us.
Google Docs has recently (as in today) launched 20 individual Google Docs templates, geared exclusively towards the bride, groom and their adventures in planning a wedding. With these little gems you can not only keep track of your guest list and your budget, you can literally plan your entire wedding in one, uber-organized little place…from booking your photographer to managing and collecting your addresses. Oh, and because these documents live online, you can share them with your bridal party, you can access them from work, you can even edit them using your smartphone. It’s wedding planning genius filtered through Google’s smart, simple approach.
So you might be wondering where Style Me Pretty comes in. Well, we’ve teamed up with Google Docs (how awesome is that) to give each of the spreadsheets a dose of what we do best…incredible tips, ideas and inspirations from some of the country’s best vendors. And a little bit of pretty of course. So while you’re working through your templates, you can read expert advice from such vendors as Michelle Rago, Jessica Claire and Mr. Boddington (full list below). It’s invaluable information that people literally pay thousands to hear. To try out these tip-infused templates, check out docs.google.com/wedding.
So. What’s a great new tool announcement without an even better giveaway to celebrate! In honor of this incredible launch, we’re giving 1 very lucky reader a wedding planning consultation with…wait for it…Michelle Rago! Yep, one full hour to discuss your wedding inspirations with planner to the stars and dear friend, Michelle Rago. Add to that, a $500 gift certificate to Wedding Paper Divas to use for stylish invitations, save the dates, thank yous etc. in any possibly color or design combination and you’re pretty much golden.
To enter, leave a comment below letting us know all about the challenges you’ve faced when planning your own wedding. We’ll choose a random winner on March 11th, one month from today!
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And before we let you go, we wanted to share a little bit more about the vendors who have graciously ponied up some of the most practical, valuable tips for the Google Docs a bride could ever ask for…
From tips on album design to working with a photographer to get magazine worthy images, Jessica Claire is our Photography Guru. Heading up Wedding Cakes, we have the beloved little studio behind some of our all time favorite cakes, Vanilla Bakeshop. Beth Chapman of The White Dress by the Shore has provided the perfect advice for brides on hunt for the perfect wedding gown. Rebecca, over at Mr. Boddington’s Studio, filled us in on all of the ins and outs of ordering wedding invitations.
Joan Bever, the fabulous catering manager at The Breakers, has provided 5 seriously awesome tips for working with your venue and making sure that you don’t miss a thing along the way. Austin Beaver is giving brides and grooms the know-how to book the right band or DJ. Joel Serrato, who we love here on SMP, is serving as our official Google cinematography guru, making sure you don’t miss a beat. Nancy Liu Chin, florist behind the most amazing designs, is giving you all of the know how you’ll need to make the right decision when it comes to your flowers. And the world renowned catering firm, Creative Edge Parties, is providing catering tips and ideas for food + drinks. Oh and of course, our lovely, lovely Michelle Rago is sharing her wisdom on all things planning related.
You REALLY don’t want to miss this stuff people!
Though we legitimately love them, Wedding Paper Divas is an advertiser on Style Me Pretty.
366 Comments about “Google Docs Wedding Tools + A Giveaway!”
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February 11, 2010 at 1:02 pm
Wonderful giveaway - I'm drooling already. I'd say that my biggest challenge is balancing budget with all these fabulous inspirations. If I planned my absolute "omg dream" wedding, (a) paper-source would be cleaned out and (b) I'd be broker than I'd like. It's all about saying "no, that's not in the budget" and leaving a place empty handed but with a larger wallet. That and balancing the number of DIY projects I'd love to do with the amount of time I have.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:05 pm
I'm just starting to plan our wedding - it will be October 15, 2011. This site has been great to look for ideas & inspiration! Thanks for always providing great contests & opportunities!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Holy cow. Google Docs has single-handedly organized my guest list, save the date send out, bridal shower list, addresses from everyone and will act as a place for me to track gifts and THANK YOUs! I don't know what I would do without it. SO helpful, fast and intuitive...even for a non-techy like me!
These templates are AWESOME. I just copied your Wedding Budget, Day of Timeline, Wedding Vow starter, and Music list. THESE WERE ALL THINGS ON MY TO-DO LIST. Thank you oh so much. Wow. I'm excited to play with them! Cheers.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:11 pm
Our office started using Google Docs and Calendar a couple years ago because it was hard to track three people who are on the road every day. They have been great and I love using them. I can't wait to try out the templates and get started with the tracking! Thanks so much for such a helpful tool!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:11 pm
my biggest challenge seems to be constantly reminding myself that our wedding does not have to have *every single awesome thing* i see on the wedding blogs i read in it -- i keep trying to add even more things to it, and it makes it very complicated!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:12 pm
One of the hardest things has been figuring out what elements I can create myself--because there are so many lovely ideas that I've found that are beyond my budget, so I'm constantly trying to work out what I can make (without it looking homemade). Also, being a creative person, it's been difficult to narrow down ideas! It's been difficult planning a wedding in another state and not being able to do everything in person until it is closer to the wedding date. Overall, the hardest thing is working within a very tight budget...and hoping that it won't look cheap.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:12 pm
Very cool! We use Google Docs to keep all of our clients (and us!) organized too! Such a great tool - really helps to streamline the process for all the busy, busy brides out there!!! xo
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February 11, 2010 at 1:20 pm
My biggest challenge thus far has been getting started! I have been engaged 1 month, and everything about the wedding (except who I am going to marry, of course) is a big question mark thus far.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:20 pm
My biggest challenge, in addition to finding a rabbi and traveling back and forth from our home in NYC and our wedding venue in New Hope, PA is keeping track of EVERYTHING. Knowing when to send out checks to each vendor, when to make a trial with a makeup person, when to follow up with the photographer. I've tried to make lists and organize, but sometimes it just seems like I'm missing something.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:22 pm
My biggest challenge has been trying to pair down the invitation list graciously and keep my mother involved in all the planning even though she lives several states away. I would LOVE some help on upcoming projects though!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I just have to say how much I love your blog! I am a loyal reader and love reading about all of the beautiful weddings that have so much style and unique touches. It is evident how much all the couples love each other (isn't that ultimately what a wedding is all about anyway?!) and how much all of you love what you are doing at Style Me Pretty.
My biggest challenge has been trying to blend what my mother wants for the wedding and what my fiance and I want. My mother has been planning my wedding for over 8 years now (I have only known my fiance 6 years - that should tell you something.). I love all that she does for us, but I cannot express how happy it would make me if we could all agree on at least one thing without an arguement.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Our biggest challenge so far has been TIME. We are one HUGE time crunch. My fiance and I got engaged less than a month ago and our wedding date is in the end of August. He is in the military and because of that, has to travel a lot, so we have a few days here or a week there to plan things together. I'm going to go sign up for Google Docs as soon as I'm done with this post so that we can keep track of things even when he is not home! Thanks for the great idea!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Where do I begin?! My biggest challenge is picking my colors. I don't want just 2 or 3 colors. I want many colors but I don't know how to make it all come together. I want it to look effortless and I don't have a clue how to do that!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:33 pm
The bride and groom have very different ideas about what is important than the bride's parents. The event is as (or more) important to them, and they're paying. However, trying to communicate with them about what is important and get them to make decisions has been near impossible, and since they have (and have wielded) de facto veto power on any decisions, there has been a lot of additional work and stress for the marrying couple. Almost worse is that they only make a big deal out of the little things, which turns minor things (e.g. how to address the invitations) into major frustrations!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:34 pm
My biggest challenge has been BUDGET. Hoever, I'm a deal hunter and have enjoyed figuring what you can do for less. Also, enlisting help of friends and family will make the wedding that much more meaningful.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:35 pm
One of our biggest challenges has been finding the time to research vendors and plan the little details, while still staying within the budget - definitely not an easy task, especially since we both have very demanding jobs! I'm lucky enough to have some event planning experience through my job in PR, but it's items like the Google Docs templates that have eased the process.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:38 pm
My biggest challenge in planning the wedding: being a second year law school student! I could definitely use some help!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:40 pm
This is great news! I'm also a Google apps addict, but one of my biggest challenges has actually been building out MY OWN templates in Google Docs for my fiance and me to share. So glad we still have a few months of planning left to use these tools. Oh, and invitations are our next big project...
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February 11, 2010 at 1:45 pm
This is the best giveaway ever. I'm a dude and I need some planning help. The hardest part about planning my wedding is that my fiance is in Brazil and we are getting married here. That leaves me to plan everything. Your website has given me some great ideas but I still want to make this perfect for Sarah. Help!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:45 pm
My biggest challenge so far was deciding WHERE in the world to get married. I've moved around so much, my fiance too, and our families are all spread out across North America and Europe. We kept trying to find a place that could "please the most guests possible," but eventually realized that we needed to stay true to ourselves and get married somewhere that's special to US. We finally decided to get married under the huge oak tree we picnicked and frolicked under when we were first dating. We're thrilled.
I'm a big google docs fan- thank you so much for sharing this resource! I'm thrilled!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I am so glad that Google has made these template. My groom made a spreadsheet for our invitees and entered in his expected guests. When I commenced adding guests, I completely messed the whole thing up! Now, I will say that it was two parts user-error (me) and one part design flaw (the mr.). After this, I reverted to using pen and paper, which is not ideal, admittedly... I can't wait to use this tool so that we can finally have a cohesive invite list!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I just have to say this is an AMAZING idea! I actually used Google Docs to plan my whole wedding, and it was awesome. I could share the guest list with my mom, his mom, my sister, or the neighbor down the street if I really wanted to! I used to spreadsheet functions to put together (and stick to) our budget, as well as things like if the bridesmaids had ordered and paid for their dresses, what flowers each member of the bridal party would have, etc. It was a really great tool, and I could take it with me everywhere, courtesy of my work computer and the iPhone. Seriously recommend it to anyone! And with new templates like this, it's even easier! HUGE HUGE kudos on this!!!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:58 pm
Love that google is doing this! And love that SMP is involved! What an excellent resource.
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February 11, 2010 at 1:58 pm
I had started to create these for myself w/ google docs based on a friend's template - thank you for taking it to the next level (always)!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:59 pm
My biggest challenge has been planning out-of-state, for sure. I am from Pittsburgh, my fiance is from Southern Illinois, but we now both live in Boston, so we decided that having the wedding in Pittsburgh is the best decision for us. However, planning details like decor and logistics are difficult, given that I can't just stop by our venue and take a look at things or meet with vendors in person. The other major challenge is editing my ideas down--my fiance and I want to make the wedding very reflective of our personalities, but we have really wide-ranging tastes and interests--we are both geologists, so we love the outdoors, but I also play jazz music, and I love high heels and girly things nearly as much as I love hockey (and he loves basketball). As you can imagine, coming up with a cohesive design concept that could include rocks and stilettos is pretty challenging, and I just haven't gotten my head around it quite yet. I sure could use some professional know-how to make my day perfect!
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February 11, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Venue. Selecting a venue was miserable. Nothing (and I mean nothing) jumped out at us. We went to many beautiful venues, but they all had so many restrictions that we didn't feel like we could really be "us." The venues with fewer restrictions lacked charm. We finally settled on Mom's backyard. Totally impractical since it is relatively small, but she will let us do what we want to do and is even installing an outdoor fireplace (gas so our guests don't smell like campfire) for my much-coveted s'mores station. No one else would let me have a s'mores station...
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February 11, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Congrats SMP on teaming up with Google. We are Google obsessed to and I am glad they teamed up with the real experts to do this right. Their tech + your expertise. Love it! We need to figure out a way to integrate this into our wedding websites - link the two to make it even easier. Coming soon!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:05 pm
i have only been engaged for a week today, but i have 6 months to the wedding and many obstacles in front of me, namely graduating law school in 3 months, taking the bar 2 weeks before i'm married, and planning a wedding in alaska from oregon!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:05 pm
I like Jennifer Cseh need to control the need to have all the awesome diy projects incorporated in my wedding, hahaha I also am adding way too many things to an already full plate and last but most important challenge is staying on budget..
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February 11, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Planning a wedding from afar! While it is great that my mother lives in the city where the wedding will be held it is difficult coordinating all of the planning half a country away! On one hand I don't get as stressed out because I can separate myself mentally (and physically of course), but on the OTHER I when I am "home" I have so much to do and so little time! Any guidance from an expert would be welcomed :)
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February 11, 2010 at 2:09 pm
We haven't done a lot of planning so far (just a lot of dreaming)! Our biggest challenge so far was choosing a date. Finding a dress was easy compared to finding a day to get married!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Our biggest challenge would have to be finding the perfect reception venue. We found the perfect church for our wedding ceremony in San Diego. Now we are looking for a place that will accommodate 150 people and our tight budget!! Help!!!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Our biggest challenge has been trying to pin down the reception decor while staying within budget. Also staying sane throughout the whole process. Most of this wedding is DIY which will save us money but I'm not so sure about our sanity!
By the way, I LOVE Google Docs. I used is to a creating a mailing list for our save the dates and to keep track of our wedding budget.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Biggest challenge: losing 4 months of planning time due to my fiance's car accident back in October(not to mention the fact that I almost didn't HAVE a fiance anymore). We lived in hospitals and rehab facilities for nearly two months, and he's had his last two surgeries this week, less than 3 months before our May wedding...and so I'm just now getting to plan! Greatest challenge but also greatest blessing in that now, our wedding isn't about colors and flowers, it is about life, love, and us.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:14 pm
We are just beginning the planning process and I'm excited to hear about these google apps! My biggest challenge is transferring all these wonderful inspirations and ideas into reality!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:15 pm
one of the biggest challenges we've faced is finding a venue that can accomodate 275 guests, while also displaying some level of character and charm. not an easy task, but we found a great spot!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Great IDEA!
When we first met with our priest to talk about our wedding he almost fell over since we are planning a wedding in Michigan, we currently live in Vancouver, BC, my fiancé’s entire family lives in New Zealand and have never been to Michigan and we work about 60-70 hours a week. Needless to say it has been hectic! We are 3000 miles and 3 time zones from our vendors and my amazing mother and another 20 hours from his amazing mother. I find myself with my calling card (it's all international) at 5AM trying to sort things out by phone with Michigan and on the phone at 11pm discussing things with New Zealand. I use GOOGLE all the time!!! My Gmail account and googling things is about the only way I have been able to do this and stay sane! We get married in July and I'm happy to say that we have lots figured out except for invitations, and some minor style details. We are not only planning a wedding and our future together, we are planning his family's vacations, our friend's trips and all the while trying to hold down the jobby job.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:16 pm
These look great!! I'm going to have to download them and see if I can move some of my own Excel lists into these templates. One of our biggest challenges was figuring out how many people we could invite, and holding our parents accountable to that number. We did figure out a neat system of estimating total number of guests though - we assigned each guest a probability out of 100% based on whether or not we thought they would come (0% for definitely not, 25% for probably not, 50% for not sure, 75% for probably yes, 100% for definitely yes), then we multiplied each probability by 1 and added it all up. Hopefully that makes sense!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Everything is a challenge! My fiance's in the Navy and I'm in law school and we live in two completely different states. While we're having the wedding in Charleston (where he lives), I hardly ever get a chance to go down there to look for venues, interview planners, and the like. He works very bizarre hours and can't really go do things either. I just feel like everything we try to do gets stretched out so long because of it. It's going to give me ulcers!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:16 pm
My biggest challenge has been making decor decisions for the large space we are having our wedding. It fits 250 people and we will have about 1/2 that number. We are figuring out how to fill the space, both horizontally because of the big room, and vertically because of the tall ceiling. And naturally how to make this fit out budget. We have yet to find a good florist who is affordable and can help us with our style questions. Thanks for having this giveaway! I would love to win :)
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February 11, 2010 at 2:18 pm
The google docs are amazing! I'm a dorky spreadsheet junky, and these are just perfect!
The most difficult part of the wedding planning process has been planning a christian - jewish (interfaith) wedding that reflects me and my non-religious fiancee and doesn't offend any of our family members, especially his very religious jewish grandmother and my very opinionated church choir singing mother! We finally found a great church that will allow us to incorporate everything that we could possibly want, including a chuppa! Now all we need to do is convince grandma to come....
The second most difficult thing is trying to figure out how to create a romantic coastal-themed wedding on Cape Cod that isn't preppy New England. I love vineyard vines, anchor invitations, and pink and navy blue striped anything, but not for my wedding! It's been very hard to find local vendors who understand my vision. (Perhaps, I'm guilty of not explaining it clearly.)
I decided to forgo a wedding planner to save money but would absolutely love (and desperately need) a wedding consultation to make sure my ideas aren't all over the place, which I have no doubt that they are. I visit SMP daily and am grateful for the inspiration. Thanks!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Well, my wedding is going to be pretty simple. At least that is what I am naively thinking. I have a location, a dress, and a wonderful man, but am lost from there. I'll take any advice I can get, especially from a pro!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Biggest challenge - planning a wedding from six hours away!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Biggest challenge is making decisions and then not second guessing the decisions.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:23 pm
The biggest challenge with wedding planning has been keeping track of all the numerous balls in the air at one time. However, with the Google Docs wedding templates, I will be able to organize all of my wedding planning in one convenient place. This is great!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:23 pm
i'm trying to keep my wedding simple but future in laws are inviting a lot of the people. my biggest challenge is trying to please my future in-laws.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Wow I love the SMP infused google docs!! I would say budget and logistics have been our biggest issue. We're planning a DW in Sedona, Az and would love to win this (as I'm sure everyone would) *fingers crossed*
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February 11, 2010 at 2:25 pm
I can't wait to get on google docs and check all the new wedding tools out!! I think my biggest challenge with wedding planning has been trying to keep everyone happy with decisions that are made!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Google owns me. My biggest challenge has been mentally cataloguing who to invite and who to not invite and being concerned that we might go over our reception hall's capacity and our food budget as a result. I feel like a horrible person judging all of my friends and acquaintances as to whether or not my fiancee and I are close enough to them to justify spending $X/person on them. All those fees and taxes that get added to the food and various services? Ridiculous! So as with everyone... that darn budget. I'd prefer to plan in Style me Pretty fantasy land :) Good thing I have till 5-28-2011 to eat ramen and save money, right?
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February 11, 2010 at 2:28 pm
What an amazing giveaway! The hardest part with planning the wedding as been managing the guest list - we both have lots of family and friends from out of town so it is hard to estimate how many of them will actually travel to our wedding.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Yay! I am obsessed with google, and now with a google wedding app., I am so excited!! My biggest wedding challenge so far is the "theme". I don't know if my wedding has to have a theme, or if I can incorporate a lot of different ideas into one. I have searched and searched and found a lot of little pieces of other weddings, and different pictures of ideas that I want to have at my wedding, now I need to put it together with out looking tacky, or mix-matched!! Thanks, and wonderful give-away!!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Wow...amazing! I can't wait to give these docs a try! I am in the midst of planning my July 31st wedding and am desperately trying to keep alllll of my lists current and up to date, but doing this through Excel is proving quite challenging. I can't wait to give your new Google Docs a try! Congrats!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:30 pm
The thing that I want to say first and that I try to remind myself of each time I get stressed about our wedding is the fact that I will get to marry the man of my dreams is what this is really about -- planning a wedding is simply icing on the cake. To me the hardest challenges have been reconciling our wedding budget with the reality of the prices for planning a wedding in a big city (LA). The amount of time and energy that it takes on a daily basis to coordinate and plan our wedding (which we have been doing on our own as we can't afford a planner) has been a close second in terms of biggest challenges. I would LOVE to have some more help!!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Um, yeah. I literally cannot put into words how excited I am that Google has come up with this awesome tool before I get too entrenched in another system (we just got engaged a few weeks ago). So far my biggest challenge has been the guest list - trimming it to fit into the budget and not making my grandmother sad.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Good idea to offer these planning tools...but question on the invite list. How will the bridal couple export the list for addressing...either digital or hand addressing of envelopes? Most etiquette books state that addresses should not be abbreviated...and the first names on top of last names will not make it easy to convert to a word doc.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Thanks for such a great giveaway. I would say right now the hardest part of controlling the guestlist. My side of the family is huge, and I'm not that close to some members. Plus, my parents run their own business and want to invite a bunch of their employees. While my fiancee has a small family and moved around a lot, so his side is considerably smaller. it's difficult to not overwhealm his guest list.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:33 pm
What a wonderful & helpful tool!!
My biggest challenge thus far is not second guessing the decisions I've/we've made so far, as well as compromising with my fiancee. From the very start of the wedding planning, it has been a team-based approach...every decision has been made by the both of us! (except for picking out my dress) Thanks SMP! -
February 11, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Goodness me. This is quite the giveaway! I'd have to say the most challenging thing about planning our wedding has been the guest list. It is MUCH harder than anticipated and it has made both me and my fiancee want to elope. It's not a should we invite our cousins cousins thing...it's a should we even invite our cousins drama. It seems that it's an all or nothing ordeal, and it defiantly has made for some stressful times. Winning this giveaway would make everything much easier!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:34 pm
The biggest challenge for me has definitely been having to eliminate certain ideas for the wedding. Everything looks so beautiful, I want it all. Haha. Have to choose certain things over others has been difficult, to say the least.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Our biggest challenge has been trying not to stress out about every little thing throughout this whole process. Trying to remember that this is our day and realizing that not everything has to be perfect. It is easy to get caught in the moment and forget about the bigger picture. Ladies we have conquered the hardest part we have found the man of our dreams.. now if we look at it this way we can certainly appreciate the fact that all the planning and the hard work that we are putting into the wedding is just the icing on the cake!!!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:37 pm
This is fabulous! My fiance and I are planning the wedding long distance (I'm living in Ohio, he's living in Nebraska), so this will completely change the way we communicate guest lists, vendor info, etc. Thanks SMP and Google!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:37 pm
We're getting married in May 2011, and while planning is just beginning, are already feeling the pressure. With a big family and modest budget, we're going for a lot of DIY and will be cutting some corners in order to really get the biggest bang for our buck. Weighing all the trade-offs is a little exhausting... but we're so looking forward to throwing an amazing party to celebrate with our friends!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:40 pm
The biggest challenge for me is trying to start planning an affordable wedding in Chicago while I am personally unemployed. Its really hard to think about spending so much money in 16 months when I cant even start a plan to save it.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Wow! What a great idea - my fiance & I are completely dependent on google docs & calendar for our buisnesses, our personal lives, and of course our wedding planning! Our biggest challenge in planning our wedding has been coordinating schedules. It's important to us to share many aspects of the wedding planning with each other and the people we love but our CRAZY schedules make this very challening at times. Thank goodness for google so we can share ideas and coordinate schedules from anywhere. I'm very excited to incorporate the new templates into this effort!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:46 pm
This is PERFECT! I've been using Google docs already but the new templates ... and even more so the ADVICE... is exactly what I needed to take my wedding to the next level. SMP i heart you almost as much as my beau!!!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:49 pm
We are doing a very intimate wedding (22 guests total) to try to keep the budget very low while not sacrificing too much on food quality. My biggest difficulty is trying to balance the feeling that I should keep things simple for this size of a wedding while still being able to incorporate unique, personal touches. Of course it has also been difficult to tell very good friends and relatives that we just can't afford to have them at our wedding. Despite these difficulties, it has been a great time to look at beautiful wedding pictures and try to come up with unique ideas which are also budget friendly.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:50 pm
My biggest challenge has definitely been balancing budget with all the millions of ideas I have swirling around in my head! Otherwise, I have really enjoyed the planning process and can't wait to see everything come together. Thanks for another wonderful opportunity!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:52 pm
My biggest challenge has been trying to focus and to narrow down all the endless choices!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Wow, yet another reason I love Google! I had my budget in a Google spreadsheet already but I'll be copying into their wedding version!
My biggest challenge has been working with our small budget. We are trying to save about half of the money given to us by our parents for starting our lives together. I also want to plan EVERYTHING right now even though we're not getting married until October! I'm planning on doing a lot of things myself and even though I'm excited to make invitations, place cards, etc. I'm worried that I will be way too stressed.
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February 11, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Thank you SMP & Google Docs- you have just made my life a whole lot easier! My biggest challenge with wedding planning so far has been the 1,000 miles between New York (where we live) and St. Louis (where I'm from and where we're getting married). Thank goodness for my mother who is, so graciously, taking on the brunt of the responsibility. I don't know what I would do without her!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Great news, I'm excited Google Doc's has arrived with these templates in time for me and excited to give them a whirl.
I got engaged over Christmas, and our ideal venue (a resort across my my family cabin on the Sunshine Coast in BC, Canada) had a cancellation in July - so we've taken it and are now jumping into the planning. I have to say my biggest challenge is not feeling overwhelmed or guilty about costs. I love to do things beautifullly - and natural, and know this doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg, so this is the fun part for me. The challnege, as the yougest child to be married, to host a wedding in a style that is representative of myself and my fiance, following my siblings much fancier, and more expensive affairs. The wedding planner would have to help me - strech a penny, and add those unqiue details in a place and for an occassion so special to us!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:56 pm
These templates are great - these would be a great complement to Google Wave!
The biggest challenge for us has been choosing a city and a venue. Do we get married where we live now, where he's from or have a destination wedding? We want to keep it small and intimate, so then who do we cut from the list? We are still struggling with this, but hope to have a decision soon b/c I need to get on with planning the rest of the wedding!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:57 pm
Planning Challenges:
Finding a way to get as many of my fiance's Aussie family members to our beach wedding in NC.
And when they arrive, trying to make them feel as welcome as possible.We moved back to the U.S. from Australia last year just so I could be closer to my family. And then ooops! got pregnant. Now we have a beautiful son and my fiance feels like his family is missing out on everything.
I want to make our wedding this August an incredible week for his family and find ways to incorporate the Australian culture throughout our wedding to pay tribute to both my husband, son and in-law's heritage.
Also, trying to find a decent photographer that doesn't charge $1000 an hour is becoming a challenge!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:57 pm
I'm in the initial stages of wedding planning and the biggest challenge has been the fact the the bride, groom, parents of both bride & groom, and wedding site are all in different states, plus I haven't gotten solid intel on who can pay what for what yet. Makes planning a bit difficult! No one in our group has planned a wedding before so talking to a planner extraordinaire would be awesome! Especially since the budget will be tight! Gotta love the Google/SMP combo - love you both!!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:57 pm
The biggest challenge that I have found while planning our wedding is just knowing where to start!! Our wedding is less than six months away, and I still have almost all of the planning to do, with the exception of the venue and the dress! I have never planned an event before, and am doing it all myself. I definitely underestimated how many details there are!
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February 11, 2010 at 2:57 pm
This is so fantastic, thank you!!
My biggest challenge right now is identifying what is realistic for the look and feel of the wedding. I know I can't do everything I want, but I'm having trouble making the choices (flowers, candles, photo booth, center pieces) and coordinating it so it's cohesive and not something I'm finishing up at the last minute. Thanks again--
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February 11, 2010 at 3:02 pm
The biggest challenge for me is narrowing down all the information out there. There are tons of great resources, but it's overwhelming to try to go through all that info!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:05 pm
My biggest challenge is taking what I have envisioned my mind as my dream wedding and clearly communicating it to all involved in making it happen (fiance, my parents, his parents, the rabbi, the florist, the caterer, etc.).
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February 11, 2010 at 3:06 pm
It's been hard for me to get my ideas into actual tangible form. I've got lots of ideas, but they're just up in my head now. Must get on that!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:06 pm
We started using Google Docs and creating our own spreadsheets... we've only as far as narrowing down the reception venue, so that's been the hardest part so far--finding a place in our budget, style and locale. Using our Google Doc my fiance and I have been able to both edit the spreadsheets with our "pros" and "cons" and update with all the info, then update when we are apart so the other sees it. I can only imagine how much these docs will help us with all the rest of the planning we have left to do the rest of the year.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:09 pm
The biggest challenge I've faced during wedding planning is balancing between planning the wedding that I want while also taking into both my mother as well as my future in-laws opinions. Too many hands in the bucket as they say. :)
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February 11, 2010 at 3:11 pm
My biggest obstacle? Nailing down a reception venue. We lost our first venue, which was all inclusive, due to lack of communication and lack of an event permit. We actually had to fight to get our deposit back because they couldn't hold up their end of the bargain! The second venue we had, we were told we were on the books and I was trying to get them to take a deposit, when we found out it had been booked by someone else. Now, we finally have a location that will be beautiful and unique, the next obstacle is how to translate and filter the ideas to make it work!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:13 pm
I cannot WAIT to try this. I've been trying to think of the best places to put everything together and think this is the answer. My biggest obstacle is a way to clearly and simply make this work for everyone involved with the wedding so I think my family and bridal party will be thrilled!! I am also stressing about invites. seems there are too many options!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:13 pm
My wedding is sneaking up on me way to fast. It is in three months! I am having a hard time getting decorations together. I want to have it fun but classy. I do not want it to look like a birthday party. Everyone is giving opinions, from my mom, sisters, mother in law and friends. It is hard to take all of their opinions and try and please everyone. I need some help!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Thank you, thank you, thank you! The google docs wedding planners will be such a huge help! My fiance and I both live and work in Houston, TX, but our wedding is back home in PA where I'm from. My amazing mom who has an extremely busy full-time career in real estate has been working her butt off as we make as many major wedding planning decisions as soon as possible. I got engaged last month and will be getting married this August 14th. The google docs will help my mom and I as we struggle to keep track of the choices we're making and how much $ is going out the door as we try to plan quickly.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:15 pm
The hardest thing so far has been just trying to par down my vision into something realistic, do-able, and affordable! Unlike most women, I haven't had a vision for my wedding day outlined since I was 5 years old. Once I got engaged, I had no clue where to start and so started reading tons of fabulous resource & inspiration blogs (such as SMP). Now, I fear I've gathered TOO MANY ideas and I am faced with having to edit all of the wonderful ideas & details I've found into one, streamlined & coordinated version. I am resisting this task, since I LOVE everything I've found!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:17 pm
My biggest obstacle is planning a destination wedding... in an area I'm not familiar with... on a budget! My fiance is from LA and really wanted to get married there. Naturally, I agreed - warm weather and sunshine sound great! But we are finding it difficult to plan everything from 2,000 miles away (we live in D.C.) So far the absolute hardest thing has been finding a venue. We are trying to narrow all of our options down to five or six places so that we can plan one whirlwind trip out there and finally pin down a venue. Fingers crossed!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Thanks for these awesome spreadsheets! They will definitely help keep me organized!
I would say that our biggest challenge is trying to book our vendors. Since we picked out such a popular wedding date (9-18-2010) many of our first choice vendors have already been booked and we had difficulty booking a venue as well. Luckily our wedding will be in the Los Angeles/Orange County area so we have many wonderful vendors to meet and choose from! We also wanted to celebrate with all of our friends and family, but since some of them had already committed to another wedding on the same day, some of them won't be able to make it :(
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February 11, 2010 at 3:22 pm
We are realizing that our Save the Dates were are not getting to their destination and people are feeling left out :(
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February 11, 2010 at 3:23 pm
I have so enjoyed looking at vendors and places and dresses! The hardest part is finding a Church and Venue that are close to each other, affordable and availible. Sigh. It will work out - eventually.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:24 pm
We've had a hard time picking a location. First, we were going to do a destination wedding so the options were endless. Now, we're likely to stay local but there are still so many choices to sort through. Thanks for the offer.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:25 pm
My hardest part has been working with the smallest budget ever, and paying for everything ourselves! But I don't want to seem sour, things are miraculously working out!! This is so exciting news! I love google. Google + weddings?? INCRED!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:26 pm
I am so excited to read about the new templates! I cannot wait to get all my wedding info into them and share them with my mother and the future mother-in-law.
The biggest challenge thus far has been working with vendors that are not located in the area I live. Driving back and forth to search, interview, and plan has been frustrating and time consuming at varying times.
The second biggest challenge has been sharing all the up to date information with everyone involved. With an evolving guest list alone, my mom, his mom, him and myself would all have a list slightly different list than another person. I am so pumped about these Google Doc templates (thank you again) because we can all access the same list with out being in the same room deliberating... and I can control who can edit and who only gets to view ;)
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February 11, 2010 at 3:26 pm
Those Google docs are exactly what I needed. I thought I was organized before, but now I'll be uber-organized!
The hardest part of the wedding planning so far has been the money aspect. We were told by my father that he would give us a set amount and has been backing out of that recently. It's been really hard and not only making the wedding planning stressful, but it has put a huge strain on my relationship with my dad.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:28 pm
My wedding challenge is finding a balance between what we can fit in our budget, and what I obsess over in wedding magazines! I keep reminding myself that this day should reflect my fiance and I, and not pretty wedding magazines.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Wow. The timing of these wedding google docs is uncanny. About two weeks ago I created and shared a google doc with all of my bridesmaids to create our own "inspiration board" collaboration. Each girl has posted ideas, pictures and questions about accessories, centerpieces and reception ideas. It's kind of a rough brainstorming sheet to make it easier for all 9 of us (spread out across the country) to keep ideas in one spot. Having family and friends on both coasts and planning a Sonoma wedding while living in Baltimore have been interesting struggles. Streamlining ideas has been difficult as we don't have a wedding planner other than yours truly! It's been difficult to sketch out a vision that works for everyone and reflects my finacee's and my style....but our own google doc helped. I"m going to check out these templates for other uses. The next task is picking vendors which will be tough to do with just one or two visits to the west coast to make all of our appointments.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:34 pm
What I'm finding difficult is "seeing" the wedding.... how it's going to play out, how it's going to look. I'm having difficulty deciding which projects I should DIY, what people will notice most... it's tough, as I haven't been to many weddings and I really want ours to shine and reflect us as a couple!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Ooh! So far we created a google template to get everyone's addresses. We sent out an electronic STD with a link to a form that would lead to our spreadsheet. It has been awesome and people have been impressed by it! We look forward to seeing what we can use among the newly released templates!
The most challenging part for us with the wedding has been trying to stay within our budget without having to cut anybody (including our friends/families' children) from the guest list. I am a grad student and my fiance is in nonprofit so we're trying to the best we can to keep our wedding simple yet fun for our guests and ourselves while sticking to our budget!
Please pick us! :) We already have our design for an invitation through weddingpaperdivas, but it's just sitting on hold because it's too early and we don't have our menu set yet! ;)
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February 11, 2010 at 3:34 pm
What a brilliant partnership! The most challenging thing so far has been fine tuning the guest list! It's been difficult determining just how people we are comfortable inviting and getting both my parents and my fiance's parents to commit to certain numbers. On top of that, collecting addresses from all parties involved has been the worst! Thank you, Style Me Pretty and Google, for these tools. They will be such a tremendous help for planning my September wedding!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:35 pm
I, too am guilty of "over-detailing" the wedding, and that's been my biggest challenge. I actually ahd to sop myself from using a photo stamp + colored envelope + wraparound label for our STDs that were also a magnet! Gimmicky overload .
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February 11, 2010 at 3:37 pm
What a great idea. My fiance and I couldn't be as far as we are with our wedding planning if it wasn't for google docs. We started with an inspiration board and a guest list and have now expanded to include potential photographers, caterers and other vendors. Our biggest challenge has been long distance planning. We live in Washington DC, but will be having our wedding in Sonoma, California, since that is where I am from. Our friends and family have been a huge help, but it is challenging when we can't meet vendors directly!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:38 pm
we already did this on our own using google docs. we taught our parents how to do it so they could help too. honestly, not that great guys, google docs is super easy to use on your own...sorry.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I use google docs for ALL of my wedding planning! I can not wait to check out the new templates. Google docs has been a lifesaver for us! My biggest challenge thus far has been trying to pull together a cohesive design (look and feel) to my wedding in all the elements. Sometimes too many options becomes overwhelming. I'm having a hard time narrowing down what I love, to come up with a vision that reflects my and my fiance's life and style together as a couple.
Love your blog!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I am THE indecisive bride! I have spent so much time pouring over beautiful images and wedding blogs trying to decide the "look" I want and keeping to our budget. It is such an overwhelming experience for me. Luckily my wedding is only 3 months away and now I have to edit out of necessity!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Biggest challenge? Tying it all together.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:40 pm
I dont know where to begin with all of the problems I have come across in planning my wedding. First, I was convenced (by my mother) of a wedding dress I now do NOT like. I bought the dress over a year in advance and my style has totally changed. Then my wedding venue, which I booked over a year in advance, told me in December that their event coordinator booked me on Sunday, April 25, instead of the correct day Saturday, April 24 and they had booked someone else on that day. I really didnt want to get married on a Sunday and thats why I booked this place a year and a half in advance. They told me I shouldnt have signed the contract with the wrong date, even though I thought the event planner was smart enough to know what the right day was. Then when they got someone to move their wedding date so we could have May 1 they tried making me pay their new prices which they had significantly raised since I had booked with them. So now we can only afford to have appetizers and dessert at the wedding. After that was over and we got the new date Saturday, May 1 I found out there was a huge church function on May 1 which half of my wedding guests were schueduled to attend. THEN a week later my dad lost his job, then a month later my fiance was forced to go part time and then a week after that I was forced to go part time!!!!!! We are left with hefty wedding bills and no money. I need as much help planning a DIY, money saving wedding as possible!! PLEASE!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:41 pm
My biggest challenge while planning my wedding is finding things that me, and my mom and future mother-in-law can agree with. A consultation would be wonderful, because it would help us all to see eye to eye on something we can all agree on.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Wow!! This is soo cool :) thank you for the chance to win. I think one of the challenges we are facing is budget, right now we're just starting to save money and it is difficult at times because my fiancee is just starting his own business. Another challenge we are facing is selecting a venue... we're from Mexico and live in a big city up north but our wedding is going to be in my hometown (1hr drive from the city) which is a very small town, we want to have an outdoor reception so finding a venue close to my hometown is very hard! There are many beautiful venues close or in the city but we don't want to make our guests travel 1hr after the religious ceremony which is going to be in my hometown church but I'd like to thank you for this site, I come here often to get ideas for my wedding and I fell in love with some of the outdoor receptions you've published here.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:45 pm
I am getting married in September, and my biggest challenge has been dealing with my mother! We don't always agree on things, especially the guest list, so it's been hard trying to please her while still having my day be my day!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Oh my goodness- this is so exciting! I just emailed it to my fiance! Because I'm in grad school and he's working in a city 6 hours away we've been using google docs from the get go. It's challenging to plan things so far apart, I'll remember something in the middle of the day and not be able to talk to him about it right away so I put it in the google docs so we're on the same page. The second biggest challenge is that I'm in grad school, which doesn't lend well to planning a wedding- but I'm eating ramen and saving money to make it great! Yay google- this will make our life so much easier- it helps with long distance planning and it's FREE! :)
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February 11, 2010 at 3:48 pm
I think the biggest challenge I have had thus far is narrowing down the guest list. In terms of planning, I am very excited about the google guest list spreadsheet becaues I feel like I am constantly sending my guest list over email to and from work.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:51 pm
Narrowing down the guest list and creating a realistic budget.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Our wedding(s) will be in June 2011. We are paying for (and planning) our western wedding and reception and my parents are paying for (and not really planning) our Hindu one. We have already done a ton of research, which is well documented in spreadsheets and word files and powerpoint for inspiration boards...this would be great to share all of those docs! This give-away would really help with keeping everyone (us, my family and his) on top of the $$ issues and everything else that comes with planning a wedding (or 2)! Thanks!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I think my biggest challenge to-date is narrowing all the DIY ideas that I love into just a few to use at our wedding and reception. I want to do ALL of them....
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February 11, 2010 at 3:55 pm
This is such a great giveaway!! The biggest challenge in planning our wedding has been in me having so many ideas thoughts and not being able to narrow it down to what will fit us both the most. My fiance loves excel and budgets and I love flowers and anything pretty :) I seem to think all details are necessary and I am struggling with prioritizing. But, SMP has been such a big help in recommendations for vendors and inspiration that I know the final product will be beautiful and personalized. However, I would love the help of wedding planner to help us truly discover our style!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:56 pm
My biggest challenge is staying true to what my fiance and I want for our day. Everyone keeps trying to give us their opinion, whether or not we ask for it. We know that the most important part of it all is that we our celebrating each other and our love, but we are feeling overwhelmed with balancing our guest count and working with our budget.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Google Documents makes planning a wedding so much easier. These tips will help to make our wedding planning together so we are both on the same page.
Also the save the dates offer is great and the advice offered and the giveaways keep bringing me back to your page!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:57 pm
My biggest challenge, so far, was looking for a venue on the date we wanted. Because we only have a few months to plan, all of the pretty venues were already booked years in advanced. I got worried that we might have to postpone our wedding. But I stayed positive and kept on looking. After a week of calling and emailing venues, we finally found one and it was perfect. We put in our deposit right away!
It was hard to start planning all the other stuff for the wedding when there was no date or place set. We couldn't do anything until a venue and date was secured. -
February 11, 2010 at 3:57 pm
My fiance just forwarded this giveaway link to me since apparently I'm a procrastinator during the entire wedding planning process. With these Google templates, it'll definitely help us sort things out and stay organized. I find that one of the biggest challenges is looking for the right vendor. We've been searching for a photographer and it's taking us forever!
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February 11, 2010 at 3:57 pm
My biggest challenge is not even know where to begin. I'm five months into my engagement and we still haven't set a date. While I've enjoyed perusing bridal magazines and blogs, I'm a little overwhelmed just thinking about all that I need to do.
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February 11, 2010 at 3:59 pm
My biggest challenge has been trying to squeeze in the time to plan a wedding in June while also preparing to defend my thesis for my PhD and get ready to start my ophthalmology residency...all of these events are going on within a months time span and it's been crazy! I wish I could devote more time to planning the wedding to obsessing over every detail, but there aren't enough hours in the day. I'm excited about the google docs because I know they will help keep me organized :)
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February 11, 2010 at 3:59 pm
Well... Our biggest challenge is getting it all done! Adam proposed Jan 1st and was then gone til Jan 16th THEN we decided that June 19th of THIS year would work out the best for us. So... trying to fit in everything and make time while being in two hours apart is quite a task :)
One thing that I have ran into is the opinions... Everyone including family, friends, vendors, EVERYONE. Has an idea or a way that works best. And trying to please them all while it still being our wedding has be challenging.
As far as an actual task I would say finding a photographer was very challenging. There is so many to choose from even in a small state like Iowa! And prices range so much that either you feel like you may be overpaying or not getting a quality photographer!
This google document would be great for cutting down on time and effort for the huge task of "THE GUEST LIST!"
:)
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February 11, 2010 at 4:03 pm
The biggest challenge John and I have faced is planning from a distance. I have one more semester in college to finish up, while he graduated last May.
It's been hard adjusting to planning serious details over the phone and getting used to having to visit venues and caterers by myself in the town our college is located. It sure brought us closer together though! :)
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February 11, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Wow, congrats, SMP team! I'd say you're the New Knot, but frankly you seem a little more relevant!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:08 pm
What wonderful news about Google! Thank you for giving us yet another invaluable tip, SMP! :-) I would say our greatest wedding planning challenge to date is deciding on the time, date, venue - the root of the event! We are on a next-to-nothing budget, as are many, and it's hard to decide where and when because then you have to decide who! Just immediate family? Does that include family friends of my parents who knew me before I was even born?? What about our best buds? It can be very overwhelming! But I echo the sentiments of others on this thread - the new Google Docs are going to help simplify things indeed!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:09 pm
wow this is a wonderful giveaway! the hardest part for me is keeping on top of everything...everytime i think i'm "ok" at the moment, i somehow think of all these little things that i managed to forget and then promptly stress out about!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:11 pm
Wow! This is so great! I love Google and Google Docs and this is an amazing giveaway! One of the biggest problems I've had so far with planning our wedding is actually with regard to working with a planner. I would like to but my family and finance's family don't think the benefits justify the cost. This has been somewhat stressful and I still have yet to figure out a way to ease my worry without financially straining our budget or upsetting our families. As such, winning this giveaway would not only be a dream come true but would also take care of this problem!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Love it! I'm going to try it out this weekend! I'm a planner at heart and am always excited to find fancy new ways to organize my info! So far my biggest challenge has been keeping the guest list down. We'd like an intimate wedding but there are so many people who assume they are going to be invited. I hope I don't have to break too many hearts :o(
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February 11, 2010 at 4:15 pm
This is fantastic. Am I a total jerk for noticing that stationery is spelled incorrectly on the budget spreadsheet, though?
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February 11, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Congrats on the partnership!
Biggest challange for me was a family member who also happens to be engaged but his fiance and I got off to a bad start, both stubborn/prideful women, it put a huge strain on everyone (me my family member and her, i think)
This family member and i are basically like siblings and he is supposed to officate the wedding, but with all this drama between his fiance and I, it was pretty much to the point of where they just werent going to be invited (mainly just her but he wouldnt come without her)
Long story short, i talked to her and got it all out there, told her my feelings and she let meknow her side of things as well as some mis-communication of things that werent very well relayed via email... not sure im completely over it but we finally speak to eachother and hopefully things will become better as time goes on, but that has been the most difficult and stressful part of wedding planning, since the entire family got involved in it and told me to squash it all, because you know, its the brides job to fix it all ofcourse, and appease everyone... RIGHT!?!? heh :)GL to all the other brides with the planning, i like to think ours is almost done but ................... soon!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:19 pm
At the start of planning my wedding, I decided to make a list of all the wedding elements and then rate them on their relative importance to me. I anticipated that I would want the best of everything so deciding up-front - before actually seeing and getting attached to various aspects - would be the way to go. My biggest challenge has been adhering to the list! It's so hard to "settle" on any elements of your wedding, regardless of whether or not they are less important than something else that is very important. I see so many cute things on SMP that inspire me to create a beautiful wedding, from the largest details to the smallest!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:22 pm
my biggest challenge to date has been not having my mother with me every step of the way. i know she's there in spirit and i am blessed to have the love and support of my family and friends!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:30 pm
My biggest wedding planning challenge is selling our house in two days and looking for a new one in 6 weeks. We are living out of boxes and trying to stay organized at the same time!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:31 pm
I have loved loved loved google from the get go. Its so easy for me to coordinate all our guest lists, quotes, contract & details from vendors. I've keep track of our schedules, registries, price comparisons and more on google docs. I share everything with my fiance, so we both can make make edits, and do it from his place, mine, my iphone, or work!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:33 pm
I love google docs! Excited to use them throughout the wedding planning.
Our greatest challenge right now is figuring out what type of reception we want. We have a very small budget and it will definitely be a DIY wedding. To avoid the cost of serving dinner we are considering doing a brunch on Sunday or doing a candlelight reception and having appetizers and desserts. We have an incredible venue and a lot of talented friends and family that will be involved.
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February 11, 2010 at 4:33 pm
I am just getting started with the wedding planning and SMP has been such great inspiration. My biggest challenge has been how to organize my budget and compile a guest list in a functional way.
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February 11, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Well, my biggest challenge was the venue changing the date of our wedding AFTER we had booked the church and numerous vendors! After an afternoon of hysterics, I realized we'd have to work with it. Thankfully we were able to move up the wedding one week without many vendor casualties, and everything else fell into place. Current challenge is that two of the members of the wedding party are expecting babies within 5 days of the wedding. Poor planning people! So we may be out a sister and a best friend. Yikes.
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February 11, 2010 at 4:35 pm
I'm so excited to have found this blog today (thank you saja wedding people) and even more thrilled to read about this fantastic google tool which justifies my insistence on using google for everything (despite my fiance's occasional grumpiness).
Our biggest challenge has resulted from living so far apart (New York and Georgia) while trying to plan ourselves this fantastic celebration (we want a party, where people are comfortable taking off their shoes, not a pretentious fairy tale) and still managing to both get through our respective full time grad programs (which means we're simultaneously broke). But in the end, as long as we get to have the experience with each other and share it with our family and friends, that's all that's important (regardless of what my potentially lunatic but lovable bridesmaids think).
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February 11, 2010 at 4:39 pm
I love the dress on the portfolio pic. can you please let me know the designer? I looked on the white dress by the shore website and it is not there
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February 11, 2010 at 4:47 pm
i LOVE google docs! boy do i wish i would have discovered that shared budget worksheet when we started planning! what a lifesaver. my biggest challenges have been keeping track of all the little details (when payments are due, what we've actually done and what i've just dreamed up in my sleep we've done, etc) and getting everyone's input. my fiance and i live in san francisco and are planning our wedding in austin (where my family lives). i want to keep our families involved in planning, so i've sent out so many emails and pictures of flower choices, food choices, invitation choices, etc. it would be great to have an online wedding binder so everyone could see all the options and comment in one place. mom likes one option, dad likes another and my fiance ... well, he likes whatever i like so that's just plain happiness.
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February 11, 2010 at 4:48 pm
My challenge has been sticking to my budget and trying to do too many things. I have dozens of ideas bookmarked for my wedding, but I know that realistically I can only pull off a percentage of them. The challenge is picking which things I'd like to focus on.
Looking forward to using the Google Docs!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:58 pm
What an exciting giveaway - based on the responses you've already gotten, looks like the competition is fierce =) My biggest challenges have been:
-Balancing our wants/desires with a limited budget, and coming up with cost-effective ways to plan the wedding of our dreams
-Planning from a distance - I'm getting married in me and my fiance's hometown, which is 3,000 miles away from where we live currently
-Not losing sight of OUR vision for OUR wedding amidst the desires/pressures/influences of our well-meaning but sometimes overbearing families
-Time, and balancing our wedding planning with full-time jobs and applying to grad/med school.Thanks for the opportunity!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:58 pm
The hardest part so far has been choosing a location and budgeting. I am amazing at how expensive everything is!
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February 11, 2010 at 4:59 pm
A friend forwarded me her Google Doc wedding template that she used for her wedding last September. I altered it a bit for my guest list... but it has been an amazing asset, and I love that you can edit it from an iPhone!
My biggest challenge has been making sound decisions. Before getting engaged I thought I was a decisive person but now I feel as though I like everything I see and will never be able to settle on just one. I am hoping to be able to integrate a lot of different ideas and still be happy with the outcome. Thanks for all the inspiration!
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February 11, 2010 at 5:05 pm
Wow, what an amazing offer! This would be such an incredible offer for us as my fiance and I have faced a lot of challenges along the way. We got engaged last April and we still do not have a wedding date! In a nutshell, 1) we are both resident physicians and are super busy with work, 2) we are both Indian and thus I want a classy traditional Indian wedding and he is not traditional at all so we have had some cultural road blocks, 3) we both wanted a destination wedding which is not possible due to the size of my family but are very happy to have decided on RI as the destination since that is where I am from 4) we are on a budget! Any advice from an expect would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks so much for this opportunity! Looking forward to using google doc wedding template!
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February 11, 2010 at 5:06 pm
We live 2000 miles away from our hometown, where we'll be getting married... we're only able to get to town for a week between now and the big day... so scheduling as much stuff into that week is important! Fortunately we have a lot of family who are eagerly helping out.
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February 11, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Wow, how exciting is this? Can't wait to start using the templates. How did I never think of this before?
I would say that our biggest difficulties so far have been the guest list-- we're only having 60 people and I am constantly second-guessing who's on the list. I'm terrified for when I need to send the save-the-dates out because that makes the guest list final!
We're also having difficulties nailing down a suit for my fiancee and finding a way to get the beer wagon to serve at our reception.
Other than that, though, things have gone incredibly smoothly, so I won't spend too much time complaining!
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February 11, 2010 at 5:13 pm
My biggest challenge has been picking a venue. WE live in California and we are getting married in New York. We are having an intimate wedding and the guest list is at around 45 people which puts us either under or over some of the venue requirements for the location that we have in mind for our wedding!
I am so excited about google this google docs announcement! Its going to be a huge help!
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February 11, 2010 at 5:26 pm
This is an awesome feature! I've already been using Google docs for some of my wedding planning and this makes it much easier.
I'm also super excited about this giveaway. My biggest challenge so far is that I love so many different wedding styles and ideas I've seen on SMP that its hard to pick just one...dress, shoe, venue, invitation, etc. While I think we've done a great job planning the perfect wedding for us some days I'm ready to drop all my plans and start fresh because of all the exciting and new ideas I've seen.
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February 11, 2010 at 5:26 pm
I am planning my wedding that will be in NC all the way from FL. Besides myself and my fiance, I also have my whole family helping us plan the wedding via emails and phone calls from different states. Having this tool will be a great way to stay connected and not have 100 different versions of the guests lists everywhere. Thank you for creating this and I look forward to entering all of my information into it!!
One of our biggest challenges right now is finding an officiant. We are not rooted to a church in NC and the law states you must be married by a pastor or judge to get our licence. Now we are scrambling 3 months before the wedding and still dont have anyone to marry us. The names we have gotten from friends have all been people who dont perform weddings anymore or only do so in their church. It's an on going headache that will hopefully end soon.
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February 11, 2010 at 5:32 pm
This is amazing! My fiance and I have been using Google Docs for EVERYTHING already: budget, guest list, etc. I'm a total Google junkie so this is pretty much my dream come true.
My biggest wedding planning challenge has been communication. I have a lot more time to work on wedding planning than my fiance does, and so sometimes I'll forget to tell him when my thinking changes on a certain topic (online RSVPs vs. paper, for example), and he'll feel left out, and I'll feel like a jerk. Since I really want this to be OUR wedding, and not just mine, we need all the communication tools we can get, in addition to making sure to take time to sit down with each other and talk things through.
P.S. I'm also crazy in love with Wedding Paper Divas.
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February 11, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Since my family is so spread out (Connecticut, Alaska), my hardest challenge has been the planning here in San Diego all by myself. Everyone is being so supportive and helpful with suggestions, but all the decisions come down to me and my fiance. To help combat this, I made a wedding blog of my own for my bridesmaids and mom to check out so they know all the things I am thinking about on a daily basis. It's great that Google came out with those templates. I already use Google docs and the calendar so the templates will just make my life easier.
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February 11, 2010 at 5:46 pm
I'm sure many brides face many challenges when planning their weddings. Let's face it, wedding planning is a mine field of potential snags and pitfalls.
I find that the biggest challenge in planning our wedding is the logistics of planning not only an "out of town" wedding (in Pennsylvania where neither of us currently live) with one whole side of the family (bride's side) scattered internationally, but living in a different part of the country from the groom.
My fiance is in medical school in New Orleans, I'm an advertising professional in New Jersey. The pressure of supporting a long distance relationship, my career, his career with long hours at the hospital and flying back and forth as often as possible is exhausting and a very difficult juggling act. We've been engaged a year on St. Patrick's day and set a date for June 2011, a mere month after the grooms graduation from medical school.
I thought having more than two years to plan a wedding was a dream come true. However helpful having the long engagement has been, it is months in between when we can be together in one place to meet a vendor. I find that everything takes more time and more energy to book in this situation.
There was also one major snag that started the whole engagement off on a rough note: the ring my fiancee proposed with was in a defective setting. The stones came loose immediately after becoming engaged. It had to be repaired multiple times within the first 6 months of our engagement. After a long and emotional battle with the jeweler, we were finally able to replace the ring this past fall.
Between the crazy logistics, being away from my fiance, and running into problems with our very first vendor (the jeweler!), this has been an already arduous planning process. I feel so much joy when I think about my fiance and our future together, I would love to feel the same joy about our wedding day.
SMP is the bright spot in this whole process (besides my fiance of course)!! I check it every day and it keeps me inspired to keep moving forward!
Thank you!!
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February 11, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Everything I do is in Google--from my Android Phone, gmail, calendar, docs, maps/traffic/GPS, Wave, Reader, etc... Google is an active member of our household and probably the most important member as Google keeps us organized.
My biggest wedding challenge is me. I'm DIY everything and learning as I go. It is much harder than I anticipated. I have a full time job and the wedding is another full time job.
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February 11, 2010 at 5:50 pm
most challenging thing is keeping my family involved and always having an open line of communication. My fiance is also in another state which has also added to the challenge of planning. Google docs is so useful!
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February 11, 2010 at 5:53 pm
I am an absolute NUT for anything Google. The Google wedding docs is ingenious!!! Thanks so much for posting SMP!! Glad to know a fellow Google obsessor!
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February 11, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Trying to make everybody happy is my biggest challenge. And we have a tiny budget... but it's still that.
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February 11, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Our biggest challenge has been determining our wedding location! Since my fiance and I are a same-sex couple, we want to be married in a state that deserves our (enormous) spend. However since we are California residents, we also want the be able to celebrate our big day with all our friends and family. One day people in love won't have to worry about this ... but since it's only 2010 we still watch our lives and relationships debated every night on the news.
We finally decided to have an intimate ceremony in New Hampshire, and a dance party at a gay-owned business in Los Angeles - the more celebrations the better! However we will DEFINITELY be relying on Google Docs to keep everything organized and can use any help we could get.
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February 11, 2010 at 6:19 pm
I may be cheating but I wanted to enter for my beautiful engaged friend Jess. I am one of two bridesmaids she is having and I know she needs some help as both of us bridesmaids live in different countries to Jess! I would love to help out in any way I can, and this might just be the best way :)
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February 11, 2010 at 6:25 pm
YESSSSSS. I'm seven months away from the wedding, and while things were going great in terms of saving for a long time, I got laid off last summer and ever since it's been really hard to merge the two sides of my brain that are saying both, "You only get one wedding day EVER! Make it beautiful and amazing!" and "Uhh, six dollars per invitation? Are you insane??" That said, this prize would be amazing. Plus, I've already downloaded every wedding template and am filling them out as we speak. :) Thanks SMP!
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February 11, 2010 at 6:25 pm
I live in LA. He lives in WV. We are determined to make our wedding a fun, relaxing and awesome day for our loved ones and decided that the only fair thing to do was to pay for the travel expenses of all of our nearest & dearest since people would have to travel so far and wide to be a part of our day. In this economy, we just didn't feel it was fair to ask people to make such expense travel plans on our behalf. We are so excited to be able to ensure that all of our favorite people will be able to join us without a painful financial investment on their parts - the problem, of course, is that it in return is a huge financial obligation for us and a huge chunk of our already modest wedding budget. I'm sure it will all work out in the end somehow, but for right now it is feeling a bit overwhelming! I have to keep taking a step back and reminding myself that it will well be worth sacraficing other wedding amenities when I look around on the Big Day and see all the smiling faces of my loved ones and of course, my groom! I have been daydreaming about the invites at weddingpaperdivas.com and can't tell you how amazing winning such a generous prize would be to both of us!!
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February 11, 2010 at 6:26 pm
Biggest challenge: managing expectations...my own and others'. And keeping the day about what it's supposed to be about...me and my fiance getting married surrounded by family and friends.
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February 11, 2010 at 6:27 pm
The biggest challenge so far has been compromising between what my partner and I both want, what our families want, and what we can afford. Wedding planning hasn't even really begun for us, and there's already so much up in the air in terms of the guest list, who is paying for what and where we will be having it! Considering our wedding is most likely going to be in 2012, there's a lot to get done.
In either case, I'm super excited for this new section of Google docs. It looks fabulous!
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February 11, 2010 at 6:33 pm
The greatest challenge has been planning an Austin texas wedding from Washington, DC in blizzard conditions and political wave changes. Both my fiance and I work in governmnet relations and planning a wedding (we've discovered) is a second job! But we've managed to get BBQ shipped from Lockhart, TX to taste for our rehearsal dinner and have gone cake tasting anyway. Salud to being engaged!! We're loving it. Wedding date -Oct 2, 2010.
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February 11, 2010 at 6:34 pm
Glad you've teamed up with us at the Goog! I naturally use Docs for everything. Forms is fantastic and a great alternative to posted and written RSVPs.
Biggest challenge is that I can't be onsite in California to plan. I love that Jenne Hohn is able to help us with everything!
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February 11, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Thank you for teaming up with Google Docs! My fiance and I have been using Google Docs throughout our planning process and it has been so helpful.
One challenge so far has been trying to choose vendors while working full-time. Not being able to check out venues or meet with vendors during normal work hours has definitely limited the amount of time we've had to make our choices.
Another challenge has been trying to prioritize the aspects of the wedding to fit within our budget. It's quite difficult to make a decision and move forward without having second-thoughts!
Thanks again SMP and Google!
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February 11, 2010 at 6:46 pm
finding my wedding style
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February 11, 2010 at 6:47 pm
I am so excited about this! Basically my fiance is an excel wizard so this will be a great addition to our resources. Although we are newly engaged, I think the difficulty is purely financial and trying to nail down your dream while not letting too much money fly away.
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February 11, 2010 at 6:48 pm
Is there a camera in our living room because I am quite confident my fiance and I were screaming last night for some help with organizing the mayhem!
I would definitely say our single biggest problem has been aligning all of our vendor's hectic calendars so that we can get rolling on our Save the Dates. I can certainly see the value in hiring a wedding planner. Planning a wedding is a full time job! If we could afford one, I would certainly hire one today!
Thanks for the awesome giveaway and the tip on Google Docs!
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February 11, 2010 at 6:49 pm
What an amazing giveaway!
My greatest challenge is choosing the venue. We want a house that a good number of the guests can stay at and can also double as a ceremony/reception venue. A lot of friends are flying in from out of state and I want time to relax with them after the ceremony. On top of that my fiance's in New York and I'm finishing up an internship in Seattle, so there's lots of moving and general craziness going on.
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February 11, 2010 at 6:57 pm
This is so great! We actually used the Google Docs survey tool to populate our address database! It was so easy--we sent an email with the questions and fields embedded in the email--everyone responded and then I was able to export it to Excel when we were ready to play with it and put them into labels! Google is the best!
The challenges we have had are all budget related...there is so much good out there--it is hard to say no to anything! But we are planning two celebrations--one on each coast so it can be hard to keep all the details straight!
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February 11, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Awesome! I use Google docs for my guest list already but it's nice that they've made it even easier! And I think it's awesome you feature Jessica Claire! I knew her in college!
The biggest challenge we're having with our wedding is the invitations and the ceremony music. We can't decide on either of them!
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February 11, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Thanks for the contest!
My biggest challenge planning the wedding has been staying true to what I like amidst so many available and wonderful options. It's easy to lose sight of what's really "you" when trying to plan every detail!
Another huge challenge has been picking the perfect location and related vendor options that fit within my (small) budget and vision. -
February 11, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Great giveaway!
My biggest challenge has been trying to find the perfect venue to work within our budget. It was hard to find one that had amenities like tables, chairs, and linens. We have a limited budget and i am settling for not using a caterer of choice to the venues food options. But even then it is tight, and we are still trying to work out our proposal. -
February 11, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Everyone faces challenges over the course of planning a wedding. Mainly because we can not plan everything. Some things are just out of their control.
Our first struggle was figuring out how my fiance and I were going to afford to pay for our wedding. We both have dreams of how we want our wedding should be. We are both students and have a hard enough time supporting ourselves most days. We have used google docs to create a budget for our wedding. With the spreadsheet we figured out how much we could afford.
The next struggle was finding a way to combine our cultures. While I am an American my fiance is Russian. Most weddings I have been to have been a bit low key whereas the weddings I have attended for his friends and family have been extremely extravagant. Nothing has been off limits. I have seen belly dancers, enough food to feed a small army, and flowers that could pay my rent for a year. It can be difficult to find how things would be best for us. We obviously can not afford everything his family is used to. Nor do we necessarily want to. But we do want to have a nicer low key wedding that still represents us. Trying to explain that we would rather get married now then wait till we could afford a wedding of that magnitude has also been difficult.
A third struggle has been figuring out how many guests to invite. Google docs has also been super helpful with this. We decided we want to keep our wedding guests limited to people we care about and that care about us. No reason to have tons of people we barely know. Plus it's super expensive. Limiting it has been difficult though. We really needed to sit down and discuss who we still talk to or see on a regular basis. We use google docs to keep track of people, their addresses, what events they are attending, what meals they would like, and gifts. It is so helpful.
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February 11, 2010 at 7:21 pm
I'm still 9 months away from the wedding but all of these distant relatives (some I've never met!!) have started popping out of the woodwork and would looove to come to the wedding! We thought keeping it under 200 would be easy, but now we're having to rethink things.
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February 11, 2010 at 7:23 pm
My 2 biggest challenges have been keeping within budget for a New York City wedding and managing the family expectations and "politics".
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February 11, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I already feel the challenge for a Fall 2011 wedding! My biggest challenge is creating a beautiful wedding on a limited budget!
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February 11, 2010 at 7:45 pm
My biggest challenge so far has been planning the wedding I would like (from afar), with all the personal details and style, within my allotted budget and my time constraints!!! The google docs will be awesome to help stay organized and figure out all the little details that are so hard to keep track of! I am going to start them right now!
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February 11, 2010 at 7:46 pm
The planning for me has just begun. I having a hard time just setting a date. I'm a teacher so Summer is ideal so I do not have to miss school...yet the temperatures of my home town can be really hot, too hot for an outdoor wedding.
Hopefully we'll get a date set soon for 2011!
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February 11, 2010 at 7:47 pm
The greatest challenge for me so far is trying to maintain a somewhat even keel emotionally. I keep teetering between really excited! so! many! ideas! and getting tired out from that, and then totally depressed by any number of things (the fiance's ideas of the bare minimum his family will accept, the outrageous amounts of money I'd have to spend to get exactly what I want with minimal stress--it's sad to have to choose between my sanity and our savings account!).
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February 11, 2010 at 7:49 pm
How incredible - I love stylemepretty and love me some google docs. This makes it so easy to share with the Mister! Our biggest challenge in the planning is blending two cultures and organizing it all with half of our guest list on the other side of the ocean - my fiance is Scottish and his entire family and closest friends are still there. We could desperately use some guidance and organization!
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February 11, 2010 at 7:53 pm
awesome giveaway!
the biggest challenge for me has been not spending too much and realizing that it's possible to have a beautiful, unique wedding without over-spending. i've had to learn that it's okay to indulge a little..but not on every aspect of the wedding. -
February 11, 2010 at 8:02 pm
Google will rule the world one day! My fiance and I just could not decide on a place to have our wedding. First it was New York, where we live, then we moved on to Atlanta where we once lived, then it was Florida, Ireland, a cruise(!), Virginia, New Jersey, and finally....ladies and gentlemen, back to New York!! Our biggest challenge in planning our wedding is remembering that it is in fact, OUR wedding!! We have gotten so much advice from other people that we forgot that one little part. Now we have hunkered down and are ready to begin the knitty gritty part, and we still feel pretty lost. I can't wait to use all of these fun templates and share them with my family and friends!!
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February 11, 2010 at 8:23 pm
The challenges I am facing...the main one would be the budget.I am a shop a holic by nature.It has been pretty hard planning a wedding on my fiances income alone and it is so hard to stick to any kind of budget..especially a wedding budget.I am so obsessed with wedding things it is pathetic but thank God I am a budget bride so most of the things I have bought have been used but still I am shopping way too much.If I see something pretty I have to have it and I can't have everything.Another problem is handling the guestlist.I am so not organized and I just write down things on any piece of paper I can find and then I end up losing it.Another problem is that we are getting married 2 hours away from our home by a river and most of the vendors I have spoken to do not service that area and if they do of course we have to pay extra. The last challenge it seems like whatever vendor I want,officiant etc is booked.I found a MUA artist and drove a hour away for my trial to get stood up. I almost forgot..it seems like whatever wedding related item i order through the mail that is glass arrives shattered into pieces.I think i covered most of my challenges lol.
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February 11, 2010 at 8:27 pm
The hardest part for me so far was picking a location that will work with our date and dispersed family. We finally decided to give everyone the shaft and have a destination wedding on a cruise ship! November 11th, 2011 can't come sooner :)
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February 11, 2010 at 8:33 pm
Our biggest planning challenge so far has been our guest list... with a big family and lots of friends that we can't imagine not having at our big day...it's been challenging to make our tentative list! I'm sure there will be lots of other planning challenges and excitement over the next year before the wedding though!
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February 11, 2010 at 8:34 pm
I totally l-o-v-e this!! I have had spreadsheets for spreadsheets with everything that I've been planning....from scouting locations, to invite lists, to rsvps....to have them all together is such an a-mazing idea!! :) The biggest challenge I'm facing is with flowers and details....like, do I do DIY flowers? Or maybe just centerpieces? How about a videographer? Or maybe just buying some of those little flip cameras and having several people shoot, and then editing it later in IMovie? Yikes!! It's crazy how everything else just comes together, and then you get all caught up in the smaller things!! :)
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February 11, 2010 at 8:35 pm
We've been planning our wedding for over a year now and having a great time doing it! The hardest part has been trying to please everyone. We've done our best, but someone always seems to think something should be done differently. With that said, I love wedding planning!
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February 11, 2010 at 8:37 pm
I too, am Google obsessed! And wedding planning obsessed at the moment. One of my biggest planning challenges is narrowing down all or my ideas; I see something new and inspiring everyday! Thanks for a chance at this great giveaway.
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February 11, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Dealing with my family (especially my parents) has been the most difficult. My mom is against me getting married (she thinks I'm too young...I'm 24) yes has an opinion over everything. Also finding a venue that would be convenient for everyone has been a challenge as my family is spread all over the country.
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February 11, 2010 at 8:39 pm
Location, location, location.....that right there is my numero uno hardest decision! My fiance is from MO, I'm from MA and right now we live outside DC! Sure pick one, right...ah ha....now add to the mix the fact that my fiance has a 7 yr old son who lives in TN & we have quite the conundrum. Lucikly we are getting close to go-time (we are planning on sometime in October!) and will have to pick a state soon!
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February 11, 2010 at 8:41 pm
The biggest challenge hit me first--I felt so completely overwhelmed!! I now love the creative elements to planning my own DIY wedding, but I was so wholly overwhelmed at the possibilities in the beginning that I simply could not make a decision to save my life! There was so much to inspire me out there that I felt like my wedding could never live up to the awesomeness I kept seeing on the blogs I'm now hardcore addicted to reading everyday. I've gotten over that, thank goodness, and hit the ground running.
Now the biggest challenges to me are staying within my self-imposed super tiny budget (since I'm the only one paying for this gig), and trying to get it all squared away before my first trial takes over later this summer! Being a first year attorney and trying to plan my wedding has been super insane! I work such long hours, nights and weekends, getting that time to go check out venues, etc, has been super difficult. And to top it off, my first major trial is set for exactly one month before the wedding--this summer is going to be the most hectic of all time!
Anyways, I hope I win this contest! Any help is would be awesome.
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February 11, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Wow I'm obsessed with google... so this is a great giveaway! I think one of the biggest challenges we've faced has been budget it seems like every time you mention wedding money signs appear. Also, I think making everyone happy while still keeping our "vision" (which we're still trying to figure out) has been really hard... I feel like I like too many things that I want to incorporate everything and could use an editing eye. In the end I know all that will matter is to have all of our loved ones there to celebrate our love which makes it worth it all!
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February 11, 2010 at 9:02 pm
I am so thankful to all of the resources I have so far been able to find online however today I am thrilled to learn about the new "Google Docs Wedding Tools" because my goal is to try and be as sustainable as possible with planning the most exciting day of my life. I have to say that I am so in love that so far my challanges are finding the time away from just being together to actually crack down and plan! I feel like planning a green wedding and utilizing my good friends at Google and those who are online will keep my sanity in check as the months count down to 06/25/2011. I will take all the advise I can get through these and other blogs/posts which I come accross so keep them coming. Think organic, sustainable, and green if you pick us.
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February 11, 2010 at 9:06 pm
Google deserves to be on top for their innovation and constant improvements. I am so glad you guys paired with such a visionary company. Now if you can convince Apple to combine with the Verizon network, then my inner geek will be fulfilled!
Tom and I's greatest challenge in planning our wedding has been the distance. I am in Alabama, working and going to law school. Tom is working in Naples, Florida, which is where my family is and where the wedding will be. I feel like we could handle anything together, but it's difficult to book vendors or even trade ideas when we only get to see each other three times a semester.
We've been pretty reliant on Google video chat to trade ideas, and even Google wave has been helpful. But I am really looking forward to being married--or even just being in the same city!
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February 11, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Although I love planning my wedding, it's also been a huge stress factor...from dealing with differing opinions from family members to readjusting our budget over and over again, it's been an unusual time. The biggest challenge is really remembering not to fight with my loved ones on these small details and keep sight of the big picture!
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February 11, 2010 at 9:13 pm
I can't wait to use the google doc for my guest list! My parents have been very persistent about having an organized guest list. I tried to create one using excel, but I gave up after it became too complicated! :) Excited about the giveaway!
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February 11, 2010 at 9:13 pm
Challenges...where should I begin! Well our wedding is May 2011 and I used to think we had plenty of time but it is slowly slipping away day by day...LOL! I guess I will start at the top of the list of challenges...1. I live in one state, and my fiance lives in another! 2. We are planning a wedding in yet another state where neither of us reside! 3. We both have the same job which requires travel a minimum of 200+ days a year. Put it this way I have been at home in my own house 10 days this year, and its mid FEB! 4. sticking to the budget 5. trying to find time to do the laundry list of DIY projects I would love to create for the wedding, while hauling my wedding planner and project materials all across the country as I travel for work!
With all of that said we are thankful for the internet, email, and referrals! We have only met one of our vendors in person, the rest we have chatted via emails and phone calls, and signed contracts based on referrals. With our crazy schedules it is the only way to make it happen, but we are determined! -
February 11, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Our biggest challenge has been balancing our idea of a super-intimate (<30ppl), chic wedding with the politics of who to invite - and then politely ignoring those who may criticize our choices (regarding both our idea of what we invision our wedding being like, and who we are not inviting).
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February 11, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Two biggest - 1) A fiance that I have dubbed a "groomzilla" :-) Although he has been helpful, he is not quite as laid back about things as I have been. Also, his side of the guest list is from out of town, so he (and I guess we) feel a lot of pressure to make sure the weekend is perfect for them. 2) Trying to figure out how all of the ideas that I like will come together on the day of, there is so much to think about, and it's difficult to know how my vision will come to life.
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February 11, 2010 at 9:41 pm
The biggest challenge we have to face is that we want to DIY everything, and asking for help seems scarier than helping ourselves!
We are both creative, and know a million creative people, so we are capable of pulling off a fantastic wedding on our own..... but I have a sinking feeling we'll be setting up the chairs and flowers ourselves hours before guests arrive!!!
An artist marrying a musician...It's like the biggest art opening and musical gig all wrapped into one! Maybe the biggest challenge is not inviting everyone in Detroit...
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February 11, 2010 at 9:52 pm
I'm very excited to try these google docs out! I've been looking for ways to get organized and compile all of our wedding plans into something more manageable. We're planning a cross-country wedding so it would be great to have some helpful advice from a true pro. And, March 11th is my birthday so winning a contest would make for a great day!
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February 11, 2010 at 9:53 pm
This is amazing! An organization geek's dream! One of the first things I did after getting engaged was set up a google group for wedding planning. Without a planner I need all the help I can get to stay on track.
One of the biggest challenges of wedding planning has been getting all the important people in the planning process (such as my Mom and fiance) to get organized. The fact that these clean, simple templates exist "in the cloud" makes collaboration soooo easy.
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February 11, 2010 at 10:02 pm
I love Google so much! I think the biggest challenge so far is to stay within our vision for our wedding and to stay within our budget. There are so many blogs and inpspirations, that it is hard to not say "Oh, I want this and that!" I want to use everything but I know it'll just be chaotic and a mess if I do. Plus where the heck am I going to find the money? Crossing my fingers and my toes! I hope I win!
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February 11, 2010 at 10:14 pm
That's really great stuff - I think these google documents are a wonderful resource! One of the biggest challenges for me has been distraction. As a full time student with only one year remaining before graduation and one year 'til wedded bliss, I find myself feeling a terrible case of "senioritous" and "bridal-planning-utopia" in the same sentence. I am over school and SO not over wedding planning. I'm beginning to wonder if I could do this for a living, I enjoy it that much + I'm a weddingblogaholic for sure. Ut-ohh. :-/
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February 11, 2010 at 10:17 pm
the most challenging thing about my planning was our DIY save the dates. Neither my fiance or I are experts at editing images but we still wanted everything to be perfect.
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February 11, 2010 at 11:00 pm
My biggest challenge has been trying to figure out what I want the end result to look like! I've never been one who pictured my dream wedding and had it all planned since I was seven - and now that it's happening I'm having trouble picturing the actual wedding. If I don't figure out something soon I'm going to end up with the most eclectic and random wedding ever seen :)
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February 11, 2010 at 11:01 pm
My Groomzilla will be SO happy about the new Google docs! One more thing for him to feel organized with! As for my biggest challenge...is staying on task. I love looking for the "right" color scheme, and perusing the different inspiration boards. I get so wrapped up in those pretty details, that I forget we need a caterer and invitations mailed out! But my Groomzilla doesn't! It's good that he can keep me on track for the most part. So with his help, I'll get everything booked and sent out in a timely fashion, and be able to spend endless hours looking at your pretty posts (and get carpal tunnel from scrolling so much!).
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February 11, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Thank you for the Google Docs Wedding Tools, SMP! I would say the hardest part of the wedding planning for me is the logistics and the budget. We're in New York City, his parents are in the South, and my parents live overseas. And since it's going to be an Indian wedding - i.e. a BIG wedding - I'm a little worried about cost!
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February 11, 2010 at 11:15 pm
My biggest challenge is balancing my desire to take on all the creative, DIY, design projects with the demands of grad school. It's a constant battle to choose between fun, wedding-inspired projects and doing very unexciting school things like working on dissertation! I am very excited about the wedding because my passion outside of psychology is design, and I want to make the most of this opportunity to have fun and make our wedding a representation of us. Ultimately a lack of time and a desire to do everything myself don't go so well together, but I'm hoping it all comes together in the end!
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February 11, 2010 at 11:18 pm
What a great giveaway! I have to say the biggest challenge I've had while planning my wedding is having to also finish my senior year of medical school and applications for residency! Its been a very very very busy 6 months for me thus far! I've had to deal with finding vendors, a theme, colors, wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses, photographer, florists - all the usual stuff brides need. Plus, I had to prepare my residency application and interview at 15 different OB/GYN programs all over the country! All while actively participating in my clinical duties as a medical student. There were so many times I wanted to just sit and search online on sites like this one, and wedding magazines for wedding ideas, but couldn't because I was so busy with school....but now I'm one month away from finding out where I've matched and 2 months away from graduation, and so I have lots and lots of time to think about my wedding all I want and my wedding planning is in full effect!
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February 11, 2010 at 11:21 pm
So excited to use Google Docs - what a great way to communicate with my mom because she lives out of state. This for me has been my biggest challenge - I want the planning to be a collaboration between my mom and I but I am finding that it isn't so easy when we can't visit vendors and do craft projects together.
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February 11, 2010 at 11:23 pm
I'm usually organized in my 'own' way but these docs will definitely help putting the details in order! The biggest obstacle in planning the wedding is the fact that I don't live in the city we're getting married in. We're getting married in my hometown, New Orleans, hopefully in October 2010. We're trying to plan the wedding around hurricane season & more importantly sooner rather than later because my dad's alzheimer's is starting to progress & having my dad walk me down the aisle is one of the most important details of the wedding, so these docs will definitely facilitate the wedding planning! Thank you!
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February 11, 2010 at 11:33 pm
Oh my heavens! I never realized how insanely intense wedding planning can be! My biggest challenge is currently now, i am a college student studying art in NY, for the semester while my fiance is back home in Minnesota. During Christmas break i planned as much as i could to have 4 months of my wedding to-do lists checked off before coming home. With a month and half left once I am home i was planning on having the invitations shipped home and ready to be sent out the minute i returned, but with my focus of school as well as a wedding 1,000 miles away they have yet to be designed. The google -docs will help so much, in that i may send them to my mom, fiance and his family as we plan! yay! ans as for the gift certificate for invites and a free consultation with Michelle Rago, well, words cannot describe how wonderful that would be.
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February 11, 2010 at 11:33 pm
I am relatively new to the wedding photography business. I am a fine art photographer who assisted for larger studios for years... and hated it! Last year I went into the wedding photography business for myself and learned that this is the most fulfilling, creative and amazing world of artistry!
In the midst of opening my own studio, my best friend proposed on New Year's Eve, December 2008,, and we began a whole new venture!
Our wedding was planned for 10/30/09 at the Shady Dell in AZ. I couldn't wait for my vintage destination wedding. Quick, unique, stress free and on the outskirts of wedding season!
Then my little sis and her hubby got pregnant... due the weekend of my destination wedding! Wedding canceled obviously! Then we got the worst news, she had SVT, a congenital heart condition. Wedding planning was OFF! A beautiful niece and happy heart surgery ending later, I am finally back to my own wedding planning.
We are getting married in Philadelphia, our home town, less than 4 months from now! It just dawned on me that after this long engagement I am running out of time! I am having a terrible time planning my own wedding while keeping my brides happy. I feel like I am running in circles scheduling meetings and remaining enthusiastic for all of my lovely couples. My own plans are totally on the back burner! Thank goodness for google docs! I use the calendar exclusively to keep things synced with my phone since I am always on the go visiting my sister and niece out of town.
I am very blessed! But at a total loss as to how I am going to execute my own event! Wedding Creative Needs Help! Our very D.I.Y., modest budget wedding event could use some major help! Peter and I would really appreciate your consideration!
-Xtina
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February 11, 2010 at 11:34 pm
oh my! what a wonderful giveaway. okay, to be honest i've got a long way to go, everytime i see something on SMP, I think, "that is what i want for my wedding." thankfully, my fiance and i are having a long engagement ~ 16 months.. so i'm allowed to not know exactly what i want yet, but man it can be so difficult, wanting everything all together!
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February 11, 2010 at 11:47 pm
this is exactly why i check smp on a daily basis. i'm always finding awesome tips from you guys.
my biggest challenge has been keeping my lists/databases organized. i have multiple saved copies of my guest list & budget on my home & work computer. it's challenging at times to remember which version is the most up-to-date!
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February 12, 2010 at 12:00 am
What a great giveaway! We've been facing quite a few obstacles with our wedding planning. Firstly, we're getting married about an hour out of town, so we've had quite a bit of trouble finding vendors that will be able to work with us despite the distance. Also, we want to be able to support small and local business as much as possible, but keeping track of word-of-mouth vendors has been tough! The biggest obstacle of them all has resulted from my Mum's deteriorating health. She's been fighting cancer for several years now, and due to her current fight, we've decided to move the wedding up several months, sell our house and move in with her. The loss of planning time, as well as the added stress of selling our home and moving, all within the next 6 months has been incredibly tough.
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February 12, 2010 at 12:12 am
Thanks for putting on this contest! I have the great joy of planning my wedding for this June. It's been a blast so far, but I definitely have had a hard time finding time to think because I am working and going to school full time. I feel like if I can make it through our biggest annual production at work, finals, moving and last minute detail arranging for an out of state wedding... I can make it through anything! I'm just excited to live with my man.
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February 12, 2010 at 12:34 am
Wow, love the templates!
Honestly, wedding planning has been nothing but a challenge. We had to push back our date after worries over whether I would find a job in the place where we are supposed to be moving. My mom lost her job and while my parents are gracious enough to pay for the wedding, I feel horrible putting that burden on them! They insist it's a gift, but... well. You know.
Coupled with school, graduation, working and trying to find a job, wedding planning is a challenge! But I do try my hardest to get it done, and I just want to be married, already! It has proven to me that my fiance and I can get through anything, and that makes me really hopeful for our future.
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February 12, 2010 at 12:43 am
My biggest challenge is geographical. We got engaged in Rome, we live in Dubai, we're getting married in New Zealand, and my future in-laws live in the States. So we've got wedding planning covering three continents! While this makes planning a little (ok, a lot) difficult, it is still pretty exciting and I wouldn't change it because it is so much fun thinking of ways we can incorporate bits and pieces from our travels and where we live into our wedding. I want Roman landmarks as table names and an end of the night toast with Italian Lemoncello! I'll be checking out the google docs for sure, I need the help - thank you!
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February 12, 2010 at 12:45 am
GREAT GIVEAWAY...challenge to keep everything personal and on a budget! all over the place!
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February 12, 2010 at 12:53 am
One of the most difficult things about planning a wedding is when you're 7073 miles away from home (your family and friends), and 9355 miles away from your wedding destination. My fiance and I have been trying to plan a wedding completely on our own from Shanghai, China. We were so excited to hear about Google Docs Wedding Tools - what a great time to get engaged - the help us in our distance planning. Thank you Google and SMP!
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February 12, 2010 at 1:34 am
One of the most difficult things is when you only have 4 months to plan a wedding!
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February 12, 2010 at 3:01 am
One of the most difficult things is for two procrastinators like us to plan everything so far in advance! I had no idea!
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February 12, 2010 at 3:03 am
What a great giveaway (and a great find in google docs)!
I would have to say the biggest challenge has been organizing my thoughts and trying not to become overwhelmed. I'm starting to feel the stress and pressure everyday now. This is partly because I'm trying to plan a destination wedding in France and a home reception for those who can't make it, in Los Angeles-by myself. Can we say pressure?! I keep trying to keep "us" (the reason we're getting married!) in the focus, but find myself catering to everyone else and their wants for this occasion. What I need is some guidance and encouragement with our ideas and the right tools to help lead the way!Thank you!
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February 12, 2010 at 3:18 am
My biggest challenge I've faced planning my wedding would definitely be planning it from across the country. I really wish all vendors understood the importance of having up-to-date information and photos on their website.
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February 12, 2010 at 5:02 am
no doubt, planning a wedding in Maryland from where we live (Rwanda!) and in just 5 months is totally crazy, except that there are so many things that are impossible to do from here that it really simplifies things. But sending out my invitations, having only seen a picture of them online, was kind of stressful! And only having occasional email conversations with everyone: caterers, day-of planner, band etc... can be really challenging. We are putting a ton of trust in these vendors and I have to believe it will all work out since what matters most is that our family and friends are around anyway. For our invitations, we used thin sheets of wood from Night Owl Paper Goods in Alabama. They were AMAZING to work with!
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February 12, 2010 at 6:55 am
Too bad this didn't come out a few months ago. I am also obsessed with google and their uber techie ways. But, to our credit, my fiance and I came up with a pretty similar idea and incorporated a few different google doc form into our own wedding website - http"//www.WplusK.com - to help us keep track of everything.
I had always wished there were more stylish designs and layouts for google docs and now with SMP there is.
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February 12, 2010 at 6:55 am
Too bad this didn't come out a few months ago. I am also obsessed with google and their uber techie ways. But, to our credit, my fiance and I came up with a pretty similar idea and incorporated a few different google doc form into our own wedding website - http://www.WplusK.com - to help us keep track of everything.
I had always wished there were more stylish designs and layouts for google docs and now with SMP there is.
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February 12, 2010 at 7:15 am
I just finished addressing all of our save the date cards and this has been the biggest challenge to date. My future mother-in-law is not the most organized of people and if I had known about these great Google docs it probably would have made all of our lives much easier.
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February 12, 2010 at 8:13 am
I'm planning my wedding long distance (in Boston - wedding / family in Chicago). So my mom have been challenged in making sure we both have the most updated guest lists, contracts, documents, contacts etc. It's been tough but my mom has been great. Honestly, Google Docs has really been helpful for us!
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February 12, 2010 at 8:58 am
HI,
Usually I am a very organized person, in both work and life. But I have found that I can't seem to bring everything together! I have tried to set out 3 different binders to track everything but it all just looks like mumbo Jumbo. I am def going to try out these templates! Thank you so much for the tip!Thanks Bunches Courtneykins
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February 12, 2010 at 9:10 am
I LOVE google!! I don't even know where to begin with getting organized so this is making me so so very happy!
We just started our wedding planning and plan to get married in 6-7 months. The first and hardest thing we bumped into was contracts with our venue. Lesson learned: Hearing one price over the phone doesn't necessarily mean that will be the price once you get there to sign the contract. When you hear a good price that you are happy with, sign it fast!
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February 12, 2010 at 9:19 am
I am in love with Google Docs! My fiance is currently working a few hours away from where I live, so Google Docs has simplified our planning by keeping all of our files in one place without multiple versions. I think the most difficult part of wedding planning for us has been making decisions. With all of the wonderful blogs & inspiration out on the web, we have a hard time deciding exactly what we want! Every day I see some new little, wonderful, can't-live-without wedding details, and I just feel the need to incorporate them all into one day!
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February 12, 2010 at 9:29 am
Wow, what a wonderful set of tools! Love Google... how did I not know about Google docs? Our wedding planning challenge has been balancing the big picture and the details. Keeping the process moving, meeting our big deadlines, etc while getting in all of the personalized details - the things that make our wedding day feel like *us* - can be difficult. But the details are also what really motivates us, so we stay focused on that and enjoying the process till the big day!
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February 12, 2010 at 9:44 am
I'm in LOVE with these templates. I love them so much that I might even suggest using them at my job. We create guest lists, rsvp lists, etc from scratch which can become time-consuming and tedious, these would save so much time!
Ok back to the more important event, wedding planning...
I am just at the beginning of my planning as we are having a very long and its a bit difficult to get our time line down. We have so much time that i don't want to start too soon and change my mind later, but also do not want to get behind and everything is booked. Putting it all down into a time line w/ deadlines will definitely be helpful. I am also trying to figure out if I need a day of coordinator. As an event planner, its my nature to want to control everything but I also want to be relaxed on my wedding day. The owner of my venue seems to think that I do not need one but he is also so laid back that it makes me anxious. Of course it will be ok in the end, but just one of many challenges!Thanks for sharing these great tools!
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February 12, 2010 at 9:45 am
Our biggest challenge so far has been to stay under budget. We have tons of fun ideas we want to incorporate but it just hasn't been feasible since we are paying for the wedding ourselves. Our goal is to be surrounded by the ones we love and making sure that everyone has an amazing time! We are less concerned about things no one will notice, like what china we use. I've already started saving every glass container we get from the supermarket. I think it's an awesome way to reuse stuff you are going to buy from the grocery store anyways! Cheap, cute, environmentally friendly, oh and did I mention cheap!
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February 12, 2010 at 10:10 am
This is fantastic! And just in time, literally, as we're starting to get down to the nitty-gritty of our wedding planning.
I'd say the biggest challenge for us is with making our celebration an ethical and responsible one. I'm a graduate student in Public Service and 99% of my program is based on public service and non-profit work and theories, and it was very important to both of us to have a wonderful wedding while giving back to the community, the environment, and people in need.
So it's become a mission for us to make as much of our wedding be charitable as possible - from having the event on a farm using only farm-raised products, to having our favors and registries donate a percentage to charity, to offsetting carbon emissions for all of our traveling guests (which is pretty much all of them). We're also planning to donate our leftovers to local food pantries and soup kitchens.
The challenge in all this is in finding like-minded vendors and wedding professionals who understand our goal, really "get" us, and trying to keep it all under budget.
Love your website, by the way! -
February 12, 2010 at 10:19 am
i absolutely love google docs and cannot wait to use these spreadsheets! my biggest challenge to date has been keeping track of all my different ideas and figuring out what i can do myself. i have a feeling speaking to Michelle Rago for an hour would help me focus so much and while i was planning on doing all my paper stuff myself, i would die to have wedding paper divas do it for me...right now it's just not in my budget!
what a wonderful gift this would be! and what a wonderful gift the google docs will be!
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February 12, 2010 at 10:21 am
The toughest part about planning has been juggling the purchase of our condo, moving and being busier than normal at work. Google Docs has just alleviated some of the stress by housing all of my planning documents!
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February 12, 2010 at 10:23 am
All I have to say is well done, Google. Absolutely genius!!! These templates are going to help us so much!! Our biggest challenge is worldwide communication. My fiance and I live in Bermuda, but my family is in Portland, Oregon and the wedding is in his hometown... in IRELAND. It complicates things more than you can ever imagine. Figuring out how to get stamps from 3 different countries for the rsvp cards alone is crazy! But communicating with my parents in the US and our planner in Ireland has been a challenge. I have spreadsheets for the guest list and budget and Power Points of ideas I love, but when it comes time to email them, they're too large to send! Google's new wedding docs will help us SO MUCH!!! It will allow us to put all of the information in one place so EVERYONE can access it! We've already used Google Maps to create a custom wedding map for our guests now this will make it even easier to share seating plans, guest lists, the budget and more with our families. THANK YOU!!!!!
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February 12, 2010 at 10:41 am
Wow! These templates are amazing! What a great tool!!!
Thus far, the biggest challenge for us has been choosing a city and a venue in which to get married. Do we get married where we live now even though our families live far away, or should we have a , destination wedding? We want to keep it small and intimate, so then who do we cut from the list? We are still struggling with this, but hope to have a decision soon.
Thanks for sharing these docs with me. It's going to make the plannign and organizing process sooooo much easier!
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February 12, 2010 at 11:02 am
What a great idea. Yay technology!
My biggest challenge has been doing a DIY wedding with no help. I live in New York, but my bridesmaids live in Atlanta, Seattle, and Los Angeles. My family lives in California as well. I have a VERY tiny budget (far less than $10,000), so everything from invitations to table linens to jewelry will have to be homemade, and it's all getting made by me. (The one exception is the wedding cake, which the husband is baking.)
With all this DIYing going on, it can be a little maddening. The docs will help, I'm sure. (So would winning some invitations! I definitely could use having one thing contracted out!)
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February 12, 2010 at 11:04 am
I just learned about this Google Docs application and oh my God, can I just tell you how much this will simplify my life?! Some might say I am spread sheet obsessed and I have spread sheets on everything concerning my wedding, only catch is these spread sheets are saved on 3 different computers, keep being emailed out, then saved, then edited. *Sigh* Relief is in site.
I have had two huge challenges: staying true to us, and not being swayed by other people's ideals and visions. And coordinating my fiance's family church with our reception. It has been the worst part of the planning process; from not receiving calls back, to being told they can't marry us on a Saturday, and getting the run around, it's been hard.
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February 12, 2010 at 11:11 am
What a great idea! This will help make planning and organizing so much easier! Since we're in the beginning stages of planning, the biggest challenge for us so far has been trying to keep number of guests down to remain within our budget and figuring out the timeline of the whole planning process. I can't wait to use these google docs to help me out!
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February 12, 2010 at 11:22 am
Oh my goodness! I LOVE this idea and it will be such a big help! You guys never cease to amaze me. Perhaps that's why you're my absolute favorite "everything bridal go to." Perfect of course for the "style obsessed bride" like myself who loves wedding eye candy and ideas =) I've been using Microsoft Excel for my lists and trying to create and organize all the information. These are so much better, and more efficient. A sincere thank you.
My biggest challenge has been planning, or rather TIME to plan. My fiancee and I are a young couple with a family. We have 3 amazing children and juggling their time and attention as well as planning has proven to be quite a feat. Fortunately William, our 5 year old son, has all the answers. He says "mommy, I'll throw the flowers and you just hold daddy. it will be a great wedding day." =) Bless his sweet heart.
Our second child Lilly, was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at 2 weeks. She's now 2 1/2 going on 20. She requires a lot of extra care and daily routines to maintain her lung and overall health to keep her out of the hospital. Her condition doesn't stop her however, from anything! She's a modern "Dennis the Menace" with a big heart. She loves to "help" care for her 1 year old brother Tristan, by taking off his clothes, feeding him chocolate, and showing him the best hide-out spots in the house when you've acquired something you shouldn't have. They keep us very busy, and the most planning I do is perusing inspiration boards at every leisure and playing pretend wedding with the kids =)
I love DIY everything and plan to have a "green" wedding celebration on Minnesota's north shore full of whimsical romance. Thanks again and Happy almost Love day!! =)
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February 12, 2010 at 11:26 am
LOVE Wedding Paper Divas! Hope I win!
My biggest challange is remembering to keep the wedding about "me and my man" and not falling into all of the traps of things "we are suppose to have" in our wedding. It's so easy to get sucked into all of these things you don't need! And it kills the budget!
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February 12, 2010 at 11:27 am
One big challenge has been time. Gone are the days when the bride and her parents were whooshed around to the finest vendors with a fabulous wedding planner with a great accent. Welcome to our workd - the bride and groom are paying for the wedding ourselves, and various websites step in to fill the shoes of a wedding planner. Tracking our budget and looking for the best deals is really a challenge, so it's important to use tools we can both access to track this. We both have busy lives and work schedules, so using the Google calendar has been great at keeping us on track. If I make an appointment I can just send it right to my fiance to approve and it goes right on our wedding calendar. Juggling our jobs, our home lives, and wedding planning is definitely a challenge, and so we use our online "wedding coordinators" to help us.
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February 12, 2010 at 11:28 am
Wow! Those templates are awesome! I can't wait to use them!
Our biggest wedding challenge is STAYING ORGANIZED! Just to give you an example of my super procrastination skills, I finished making our Save-the-Date cards in August and only just mailed them out yesterday, as in SIX MONTHS LATER! So as you can see I need all the help I can get!
Thanks!!!
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February 12, 2010 at 11:48 am
I'd say my biggest challenges so far have been figuring out where to look for vendors & venues (Google helps, but it's been a lot of picking through search results to find the best info) and getting all the info I need pulled together from various sources. For our guest list, I had a lot of the addresses, but some needed updating, some were on an old computer, some had to be requested from the guests themselves, and some had to be begged for from parents. Trying to get all the necessary information from all the various sources was quite a project, and being able to organize it all in one place is going to be crucial for future steps, I think.
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February 12, 2010 at 11:53 am
Our biggest wedding planning challenge has been planning while living on opposite sides of the country. My fiance stayed in CA for work and I moved to MI for grad school. Google docs really helped us both stay connected to the planning without being there in person. We used the "shared docs" function to see each others updates. It was a HUGE help! AND, I'm happy to say we just made it back to CA to finish our last 3 months of planning together!
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February 12, 2010 at 12:14 pm
Planning a wedding while in medical school!
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February 12, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I just love how easy and effective google docs are! We actually used them for something NOT mentioned above. We used them for RSVP's! It's working beautifully so far. I just wish there was a more wedding friendly template (we used plain white). We made our wedding website all within a blog so this works beautifully! So easy to do.
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February 12, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Our biggest challenge has been making decisions. There are so many great ideas and vendors out there its been a struggle. I'd love some direction from Michelle - it would make a world of difference!
Thanks!
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February 12, 2010 at 12:30 pm
The greatest challenge my fiance and I have faced can be attributed to finances. My dad is in the real estate and finance industry so he's just trying to take care of my mom and keep his business going. This has left me and my fiance to pay for everything. We do have steady jobs, so we thought it wouldn't be an issue. I am from Los Angeles (but currently live in Oregon) so I wanted to get married there. I traveled down south for Christmas and hit the pavement running while searching for a venue. I called my fiance crying every day because we couldn't find a single place under $12,000 just for food and the site fee. This included nothing else. I was depressed for quite some time realizing that I'd either have to compromise everything I'd like to have a tiny, not so cute wedding in SoCal, or I could have a great wedding in Oregon.
So we chose to wed in Oregon. We were engaged in October and made this decision in early January. So the compulsive planner in me was starting to panic, but I still was relieved that we could have our dream wedding up here. We found a lovely vineyard up here that seemed to suit our needs. However, they wouldn't budge on letting us have a 20% discount for being wine club members because we joined the club on Jan 8 and wanted to get married on July 4 and needed to be members for 6 months for the discount. We missed it by four days and they refused to work with us. The coordinator became very rude to my fiance and wouldn't even help us. So then we lost that venue, and went back to work searching, having now been engaged four months.
We just booked a site (thank the Lord), but now feel entirely overwhelmed with the rest of the details. The date (Fourth of July) is not too far away and we only have our site and photographer. Eek. I'm sure it will work out but we both work full time and have side teaching jobs and this has been another full time job. But I love your site....it's given me so many ideas :)
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February 12, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Yay! Pulling up the StyleMePretty website and learning that Google Docs has templates specifically designed for weddings definitely made my day! I was just going over the mutliple excel spreadsheets I had created for our wedding and just looking at these unorganized and time consuming lists makes me feel so fustrated. I can't say enough how thrilled I am to have Google Docs!!! My groom will be so happy to see these too when we finally get to go over the details of the wedding planning done/to be done this weekend. He is a very technical and organized individual and I definitely try to be but since we've been planning the wedding in October , I've been left alone to get things on the to do list and completed, but honestly I've been a mess. Ahhh, what a big sense of relief for sure!!
We are facing a few big planning challenges. The biggest is logistical. We live in Miami and our wedding is in Dallas (my hometown) this coming November. That alone wouldn't be too bad of a challenge as I am sure alot of brides plan weddings from afar. The challenge we have is that a few months before the wedding, we are moving to D.C for one month (approx) and then to Japan!! Then we are flying back from Japan just a week or two for the wedding! We have never lived out of the country and there's a lot of planning to do on that end because it is such a big move. So, currently dealing we are dealing with being in another city than the wedding location but at least I'm in states even though I'll only able to make two trips to Dallas between now and the wedding in November. The rest of the planning will have to get done from Japan. My groom and I are paying for the wedding entirely ourselves and we are doing all of the wedding planning ourselves too. Thankfully, we do have a venue, my gown, and the hotel room blocked...but that's it! I'm still trying to iron out all of the other details: style/theme, save the dates, photographer etc etc. before we move to Japan in the summer and stay on a tight budget. I am planning for a November wedding, but I feel like I'm planning a June wedding. This is definitely a very unique timeline we are working with here! I am learning alot through this planning process and staying on track and on budget is an added challenge.
That best thing is knowing that my groom and I are already married. We were married by the court this past November and having already made that committment to each other keeps me grounded. So it's okay if things do go or get done exactly as planned for the wedding, it isn't really important..although every now and then during the planning I'm sure I'll have to remind myself of that. We really are so excited to be able renew our vows, share and celebrate our marriage on our 1 year anniversary surrounded by our family and friends. :)
Cheers!!
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February 12, 2010 at 1:22 pm
The biggest challenge we've had so far is coming up with out IDEA of what we want... we're pretty non-traditional, but we want something small and fun.
We're scouring for ideas.I'm excited about google docs!
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February 12, 2010 at 1:28 pm
When we got engaged, I was so thrilled to begin planning a wedding that reflects who we are as a couple and infuses all things we love, and are important to us. Sharing this with all the amazing people in our life on the day we get married will be a dream come true. My challenge, (now that we have jumped into the planning process) is bringing together all of the things we love and incorporating them into our wedding in a cohesive and beautiful way.
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February 12, 2010 at 1:54 pm
My daughter is getting married Feb 27th. She and her fiance were ahead of the game I guess. They made their own Guest List, and To Do List on Google Documents. It made it very easy for those of us working on the wedding to share the lists and see what still needed to be done. Another thing they did was set up a form on their website www.wplusk.com for guest to RSVP. The form populates a list on Google Documents, giving the guests a convenient way to RSVP. The surprise was the first people to RSVP via the online form....my 78 year old parents! Who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks!!
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February 12, 2010 at 2:09 pm
First off, love Google too. I am a teacher at a rather elite school and I have to google half the stuff my kids tell me because, frankly, I don't know it. Trinity College Class of 2006, Boston College Class of 2009-- apparently $200,000 worth of education can't tell you if a gerund phrase can fall within an appositive, and how to off the cuff whip up an example.
While googling helps me solve most of my "teacher" related problems, I have to say the biggest wedding planning challenge is trying to figure out why people get so stressed out about this! My fiance and I are paying for the wedding ourselves (and trust, a teacher paying her way through her $200,000 education can't exactly splurge for the raw bar during cocktail hour) but just chipping away at it and embracing the DIY factor has made this a wonderful experience that has generated a lot of self understanding, love, and good memories with my fiance, family, and I. We are doing the reception decor and all paper related things ourselves and I couldn't imagine doing it any other way. There are so many resources nowadays that I am blown away by what people are doing for relatively cheap. I feel that my imagination is worth more than anything I could pay for! But maybe I am so surprised by all of this because the first 16 years of my life were spent wishing I were a boy, not wishing for a dream wedding! So I am surprised with each new discovery.
Well, it is kind of challenging not to eat the brownies that were sent to me in the mail. I want to look bomb in my dress; you know how that goes.
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February 12, 2010 at 2:09 pm
I have never heard of this Google tool - I will check it out for sure! I'd have to say my biggest challenege thus far has been picking a location. I currently live in one city with my fiance, but all of my family is from another one about 3 hours away (while his resides here!) - needles to say it was a difficult decision - and in the end opted to the city where I am from because I have a larger family than he does, with a lot of older relatives - and also was able to get a gorgeous venue in the city where I am originally from! Sometimes I think about how much EASIER it would have been to plan it here as we have had to make MANY trips back - but I know in the end it will be worth it - and online searching has made that a lot easier :).
Tina
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February 12, 2010 at 2:21 pm
My biggest challenge has definitely been time. I have been a full time nursing student in an accelerated program for the last year and I feel like I haven't even touched the surface for what should have been done so far in regards to the wedding. It has been frustrating, because when I do a project I like to be devoted full time to it and balancing life, nursing school, and wedding planning has been difficult for me, to say the least. Its been tough because of those three things, wedding planning is probably really taking the hit. I would love the opportunity to talk with a professional that can help me find focus, get back on track and have the wedding I've always hoped for.
Thank you!
Sarah -
February 12, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Love Google and their innovative methods! So many challenges came from our wedding, my fiance's mother is one of 15! With 20 years in between the oldest and youngest child! So trying to get a family tree together to see who to invite (just on his mother's side) was chaotic and a nightmare but I will be so excited that so many of his family members are heading to Charleston, SC for our wedding!
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February 12, 2010 at 2:31 pm
My biggest challenge so far besides our budget is the fact that I'm so indecisive! Ever since our engagement last September, my mind has been racing non-stop about ideas and details for the wedding. It's been fun, but ever since I've fallen into the world of wedding blogs and websites, I've seen such inspiring wedding photos from other weddings that I want to use bits and pieces of them to incorporate into mine! It's just so hard for me to imagine what everything will look like and I feel as though it's not going to come together right. A professional opinion would be truly helpful and much appreciated.
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February 12, 2010 at 2:34 pm
Looking forward to test this super Google program this weekend
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February 12, 2010 at 2:48 pm
Our biggest challenge has definitely been managing the budget! We've also had some major issues finding a photographer. This is such a fabulous give away!!
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February 12, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Ooooo, my cousin just forwarded this! I'm so excited to add your blog to my list as I plan, I love the aesthetic and it looks like you have some great tips! And the giveaway doesn't hurt!
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February 12, 2010 at 3:47 pm
Ooh! I would love to win this! I've been so overwhelmed with figuring out the timeline for our day and how everything should fall into place. We don't have a planner, and I'm trying to figure it out on my own.
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February 12, 2010 at 3:50 pm
My Family having so many crisises (Dad made poor choice and got fired, little sister made poor choice and got knocked up...)that My special day became just another stress instead of a joy.
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February 12, 2010 at 4:13 pm
This is a wonderful give away! My biggest challenge has been reminding myself that we do have a budget!
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February 12, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Great giveaway! My challenge is being taken seriously by some of these wedding vendors. It's almost funny to see reactions when they realize they're actually dealing with the groom.
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February 12, 2010 at 5:43 pm
My biggest challenge is just getting it all started! Trying to hash and and solidify our vision and exact how everything will coming together. Thank you guys for these documents I'm sure they will help greatly!!
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February 12, 2010 at 7:27 pm
My biggest challenge so far has been building one cohesive vision out of many unique ideas... "how do I have a country garden, eco-friendly, hollywood glam, romantic elegant, offbeat and kooky wedding without being tacky?" Another challenge is always finances but I have done hundreds of hours of research online (THANK YOU GOOGLE!) finding inspiration, tutorials for DIY projects, and affordable materials and am confident that we have figured that part of our wedding out. :D Can't wait for JULY 2 2010!
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February 12, 2010 at 8:44 pm
I am so excited about using Google Docs to plan my wedding! In fact, I've been using it already, so it's so great to have premade templates. The biggest challenge for planning my wedding (which will be in July) is that I'm also finishing up my phd in math and trying to find a job for after I graduate. I would be going nuts without having a wedding to plan. It might seem like bad timing, but if I can pull it off 2010 will be the best year ever....
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February 12, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Planning one wedding is tough enough, but two?! My fiance and I decided to get married in beautiful Salt Lake City, his home town. Having moved there only 6 months prior and not having any real connections we decided to hire a wedding planner. Needless to say the planner was of little help and I did the work myself. Wow! Not so rough! We had all of the vendors hired and life was grand... Then, over Thanksgiving, we found out my grandpa was told by his cardiologist that he could not attend the wedding, that the altitude was too much for his heart. After an emotional day and attempting to work around the problem, we decided to move the wedding to Portland, Oregon- my home town which is luckily at sea level! We canceled all of our vendors, most of which were very forgiving monetarily (not the wedding planner!) and started afresh planning our new wedding. More than anything this experience has taught us what is important to us on our special day- being surrounded by those we love.
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February 12, 2010 at 11:04 pm
My biggest challenge is people telling me how and what I should do. This is not your wedding. Keep out of it!
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February 12, 2010 at 11:20 pm
first, i want to say that i love share tools like google docs, and now with your added features it'll make things even easier!
our biggest challenge is trying mesh our two cultures so it satisfies as many people as possible and to add to the mix, we're also two different religions. my fiancee's family is from el salvador and catholic and my family is pakistani and muslim. so you can imagine the critical thinking we have to do while keeping as many people in mind as possible.
hope we get picked, our wedding is May 23.
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February 13, 2010 at 12:04 am
I really, really need help!! My fiance and I were set on a destination wedding in New Orleans but due to my father's illness it would have been too hard to get him there so it is now in Dallas. I have really struggled incorporating any New Orleans feel to the wedding b/c it is in Dallas. I also love vintage weddings but my reception site is modern so I don't know how to blend the two. I feel there is so much online and in wedding magazines for vintage weddings but not much inspiration or ideas for modern weddings. I also really want to add in some DIY projects but really have no one besides my fiance who could help me so am worried about taking on too much and which DIY projects are more successful. And of course budget is always an issue, probably for most brides. Thanks!!
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February 13, 2010 at 12:05 am
Thank you for sharing this! I love google documents already and now I can add more to what I already have.
The biggest challenge for us is sticking to one idea/theme. They are so many great inspirations out there I sometimes lose focus and want to add more things to the wedding. haha
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February 13, 2010 at 1:13 am
Love the site!! My biggest challenge would have to be trying to please everyone and I mean EVERYONE involved in the wedding.. familiy members included!
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February 13, 2010 at 1:28 am
Pick us! Ha! We would SO appreciate fine invitations that allow our personal style to shine through. Our wedding is in August in Palo Alto, CA. The hardest parts have been staying true to our budget (though it makes us get extra creative!) and taking into consideration our parents more formal idea of what they would like to see at our wedding!
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February 13, 2010 at 2:10 am
The biggest challenge that my fiance and I are facing right now is trying to converge our visions with what is realistic. That balance between idealism and realism is hard when trying to plan one of the most momentous days that will begin our married life together.
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February 13, 2010 at 10:46 am
The biggest challenge is narrowing things down. There are so many great ideas out there, its hard to decide what exactly we want!
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February 13, 2010 at 1:43 pm
Oh my gosh what a GIFT! We just got engaged and I am quite overwhelmed and not even sure how to start tackling everything. I would LOVE to be able to get advice and guidance from Michelle! My fiance is a computer programmer so Google docs have been keeping us the same page since the beta version. Ahh techy love... We would be so grateful... <3
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February 13, 2010 at 2:45 pm
The biggest challenge we've faced has been getting what we want booked but keeping it within budget. It has been quite overwhelming, but we're getting by.
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February 13, 2010 at 8:06 pm
I don't even know where to start! Planning a wedding is so much harder than I thought. Our biggest challenge is figuring out how to get from the place we want to take pictures to the ceremony and then get everyone to the reception without taking a hundred hours. We can't figure out when to do toasts, cake cutting, first dance, etc!! Winning this would be amazing!
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February 13, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Biggest challenge in wedding planning thus far has been folding in everyone's picture of the big day. My fiance is very involved and has a clear vision, as do my parents, and his. The challenge is how to have everyone have exactly what they want -- because I know this wedding is not just for us, it's for the possibility of all being one family, whatever it takes.
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February 13, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Our challenge is trying to plan the wedding while we live in different city. We've got to send photos, files, emails back and forth to communicate. Google doc template sure will help us with organizing.
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February 13, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Challenges? Where do I begin?
Although I love my mother to death - one pretty big challenge is having to deal with her vision versue mine and my fiances (I'm the youngest, last to get married and the only girl). I just want to walk into my reception and feel like it is exactly how I wanted it - simple and meaningful and beautiful!
Finances and budgeting for the wedding. We just bought a home in June, so we've definitely been trying to save for the wedding but with the holidays and new home... well you know how that goes.
What's next? Well I fell in love with an Alvina Valenta dress, and that's great, but the closest bridal shop I could find to go to so that I could try it on was a couple hours away... yes, mom and I made the hike there and back... good thing I liked it once I tried it on!
Could there be any more challenges you ask? Well, yes! All of my bridesmaids including my MOH are out of town so I'm kind of on my own for this one...besides my mother and FMIL... but sometimes you just need your girls by your side. You know?
Last challenge is balancing a crazy work life, home life and the wedding all at once... but I know I'm not the only one. I'm just thankful to have all those things in my life right now.
Oh and PS - today's wedding challenge was finding the right shade of purple and green organza for a DIY project... it's not looking so good!
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February 14, 2010 at 11:38 am
Happy Valentine's Day everyone! My wonderful fiance Scott and I were engaged on December 18, 2009 in New York City. We've always said that family and friends are the most important part of our lives, and of our wedding. We envisition a small, fun destination wedding in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (a place that is special to my family and now to Scott as well) where our two groups of friends can finally meet and get to know each other. It's important to us to be able celebrate our lives and our future together.
Our main challenge, like most couples, is balancing our vision with our wedding budget. We know destination weddings can be very expensive for guests, so getting the best deal on airfare and accomodations is paramount. Planning a destination wedding is incredibly difficult and we could use all of the help we can get. We are willing to compromise on other aspects of our day, including budget for the dress, flowers, and cake if we are able to share this special day with those we love.
Good luck to all of the other brides and grooms. This is an exciting and challenging time! Thank you Google docs! We've been using you since your inception and I was so excited to see the new wedding docs! This is a great Valentine's gift that we are going to start using today!
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February 14, 2010 at 1:40 pm
I cried.
Yes, I cried when I saw this entry!
I have less than eight months to plan my wedding, and my laptop died, and my fiance's computer doesn't have excel. I was just freaking out today about how I was going to organize EVERYTHING...and to distract me, I thought I'd check for some recent color inspirations. (Yes, I don't even have a palette.) Anyway, that's when I found the entry about the new Google docs applications. I am heading there...NOW! THANK YOU!!!!!
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February 14, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Our biggest challenge has been including and pleasing all of the family! My parents are both so supportive and are paying for most of the wedding, but haven't gotten to do much planning with us since my fiance and I end up doing most of the planning after work. In addition, my fiance has both his parents and step-parents, all of whom have different visions for the size and scope of wedding events. We love them all so much and want them all to have a great time!
The consultation and wedding invitations would be a great way to give back (even a little!) to all our parents after they have given us so much!
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February 14, 2010 at 9:44 pm
I think my biggest challenge is creating a simply stunning wedding that is unique to us. I have so many ideas, many of which are cohesive, but I am challenged to find a definitive overall vision! I have been a bridesmaid too many times to count (which has included being an informal wedding coordinator!) and now that it is "my" time, I would love the opportunity to have a professional find our essence, organize all of the ideas, and create a magnificent vision for our wedding!
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February 14, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Is it ridiculous that the band was my #1 priority? I got exactly who I wanted but they are not easy on the budget. Now I am trying to get creative with the food for a night reception (9-1) so I don't totally put us in the red. Strolling hors d'oeuvres? Why am I thinking about this on Valentine's night? Help!
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February 15, 2010 at 12:00 am
Our biggest challenge has been planning everything ourselves and juggling wedding stuff with our already full work and grad school schedules. We're getting married where we both live, but our families and most of our friends are a plane ride away. Since we're not hiring a wedding planner, that means just about all the work falls on the two of us! Our wedding is essentially a destination wedding for everyone but us, and while we're excited to welcome our guests to our city, we need to coordinate their transport, hotels, etc. Add to that an outdoor, tented garden wedding, and well, that's a lot of moving parts. We're excited about the potential, but not looking forward to all the work!
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February 15, 2010 at 4:02 am
Since my fiance and I are paying for the wedding ourselves, planning a beautiful wedding on a limited budget will be our biggest challenge... though managing our family members' opinions may be a close runner-up!
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February 15, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I LOVE your site. A friend told me about SMP after hearing that I aspire to be a full-time party planner. I am knee-deep in wedding plans, with less than seven months to go and I still don't have a dress. Why not, you ask? Well, I want an emerald green dress and they aren't that easy to find! Throw in a shoestring budget and the difficulty finding a venue close to the church and it's been hectic but fun. Why did I insist on the short engagement? :P
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February 15, 2010 at 1:30 pm
One of my biggest challenges is making simple decisions! There are so many great ideas out there, and I keep changing my mind about what I want to do. Luckily the big pieces are all set, and it's just attire/decorations that's really up in the air at this point.
I started my research in google docs, and used some spreadsheets a friend of mine shared with me - these templates would have been amazing a few months ago, but I still may use some that I don't have covered already, such as seating charts!
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February 15, 2010 at 1:45 pm
This is amazing!
A huge challenge for me is not just balancing my budget, but it was CREATING the budget. Understanding comparable prices of your typical dinner at a 4 star hotel vs. dinner at a 5 star. Open bar costs at a destination wedding vs. USA wedding. Just putting those pieces together in a kind of financial model to understand where I should aim to have my wedding was a huge challenge.
I also wanted this type of a comparable spreadsheet so that I could show my in laws and parents. They were inexperienced at throwing large events and it was hard for them to gauge the correct price when we didn't have anything else to compare to.
These docs are very helpful, it would be even more helpful to have a report on typical weddings by venue and type of wedding (indian wedding vs, christian vs. jewish). Thank you!
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February 15, 2010 at 2:11 pm
WOW!!! It is great to hear that now Google has all these tools to help plan a wedding! I am a huge Google fan.. they pretty much rule my life :D I wouldn't know what to do without gmail, picassa, google maps, etc...
For me, the biggest challenge has been actually getting started and to be able to narrow down all the ideas into our dream wedding. I feel like I have been bombarded with millions of ideas, images, and concepts that could make our day great. It has been difficult to figure our where to look, what to ask, and what to take into consideration when planning a wedding. Different people suggest different things and it is hard to make everyone happy.
Thanks Google and Style me Pretty for all the help you have provided to make our day a dream day!
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February 15, 2010 at 3:59 pm
I just checked out the Google Docs feature - so great! I've been doing most of my planning through Google Docs anyway, but some of these would've been so helpful a few months ago! I'd have to say that the address form will be so useful for all sorts of upcoming life events. One of my coworkers already wants to use it for baby announcement preparations!
My biggest challenge has been communicating effectively with my fiance and our parents. We try to stay on the same page, but with so many individual ideas swirling around, it's tough to keep it all together. I wonder if there's a Google Doc able to solve that!? My fiance and I make decisions together, which can be time consuming (and frustrating, since I decide quickly and he wants to weigh all the options before making a decsion). On the other hand, I feel so fortunate to have a very active and helpful fiance and family. Either way, communication has been the most challenging thing of all...but hopefully, what we learn throughout this process will help us for the rest of our marriage!
I echo what Olga says - It's really hard to make everyone happy. Whenever my fiance and I get frustrated, we try to go back to the basics - what will make us happy and help us throw a big, fun party!
Thanks Google and SMP...what a great partnership!
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February 15, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Thanks Google Docs! I had started some wedding planning spreadsheets (on Google Docs of course), but these are much better than mine!
The biggest challenges so far have been containing the guest list (it just seems to keep snowballing!) and remembering that the wedding is just a party, and it does not need to "define" us - if something isn't perfectly stylish, no one will care! I've put pressure on myself because I am a designer (in the wedding industry, too!), so I feel like I need to impress everyone with an amazingly unique and stylish affair. Less is more, just make it fun, and remember - it's about the marriage, not the party!
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February 15, 2010 at 5:18 pm
man where do i start? i'm pretty good at organizing everything in my life BUT the wedding. for some reason, any wedding related decisions leave me paralyzed and i have no idea where to begin. with the wedding SIX months away from yesterday, i start hyperventilating every time i think about all that is left to do. i'm having a hard time committing to any decisions out of a fear of making a mistake that we'll never be unable to undo. we've been trying to use google docs to organize our wedding tasks but were a little googledoc challenged. thank goodness for these new templates to help the wedding planning challenged. the address collecting template is EXACTLY what we need right now to send out our STDs!
now if google could help me make a clone of myself to wedding plan as i teach and go to grad school, i could start breathing easy again.
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February 15, 2010 at 5:29 pm
The hardest part of our wedding planning has been the fact that I live in Portland, OR, and am planning our wedding to be in San Francisco, where I grew up. Having my mom and sisters there has helped with having them go see things for me, but I've had to add in the travel expenses of getting down there for planning into the budget. Also, planning a wedding in Portland is significantly less expensive than planning one in San Francisco, so I've had to change my expectations and make cuts in order to get married in my home town where I grew up.
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February 15, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I just know Google Docs planning will prevent some potential guest list/budgets/scheduling nightmares. My fiance and I are eternally grateful, Google & SMP! We can't wait to get our hands dirty and finally get this guest list done!
The hardest part of our planning is staying under our $10k budget...yes, that includes parties, engagement photos, all food, AND DIY goodies. We're two young lovebirds with a vision of the perfect party for 100 of our closest family and friends - we just hope we can pull it off!
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February 15, 2010 at 7:36 pm
Wow that is fantastic! Thank you for creating those google docs!
I think the most difficult parts of planning so far have been coming up with the guest list and dealing with parental influence. We really aren't into the whole "it's your big day" notion of weddings but it has been difficult managing parents' expectations.
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February 15, 2010 at 11:40 pm
There is no doubt that Donnie's and my biggest challenge is planning a wedding and living thousands of miles apart. We have been trying to skype and I send him links from "Style Me Pretty" all the time to point out things I like. We are constantly sending attachments back and forth and trying to get a big picture idea of how to stay in our budget. I can't wait to start trying out Google Docs. I am a spreadsheet girl and enabling him to have access of every thing I'm looking at and updating sounds amazing. Heading there now! Thank you for featuring this!!!
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February 16, 2010 at 9:28 am
My biggest challenge is taking all views into consideration and staying on budget! My mom, fiance, and I all have strong personalities and visions of what the event will look like.
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February 16, 2010 at 4:49 pm
I got in engaged in September of 2008, but I'm not actually getting married until August 2010. I figured with almost 22 months to plan my wedding, I would have everything under control a least a year to 8 months before the big day. Well, I was totally wrong. I did have almost everything planned and taken care of and then the problems started – the stationary store that was going to make the invitations went out of business; the caterer had somehow double booked the day of our wedding; the photographer decided to move to another State; the lady who was going to make our cake found out she was pregnant and due on the same day as our wedding (although I am very excited and happy for her); my wedding dress had many, many mistakes when I went to pick it up; the china we registered for ,all of sudden was discontinued - and so on and so on. Fortunately, we’ve been able to fix most of these things and move forward. At this point, when things go wrong, all we can do is smile and laugh. I figure it’s all just a lesson in patience and expectations.
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February 16, 2010 at 10:33 pm
So many challenges. First of all, we can't find a venue!
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February 16, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Making everyone happy and reconciling everyone's tastes! I'm too much of a people-pleaser I think...It's also difficult to plan a destination wedding...I need more hours in the day!
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February 17, 2010 at 2:01 am
Thanks for the great contest!
Our biggest challenges so far have been family-related. I know that weddings inevitably bring up tension but it's hard to really understand until you are in the thick of things! I know I sound like a broken record, but how can I get over the fact that it is impossible to please everyone?!
One thing I do know - they will all be proud and happy to see their names along with ours on our beautiful invitations. As much as it may seem like just a piece of paper, it really is a symbol of something far greater, and when we all come together I know it will be a joining of amazing forces!! -
February 17, 2010 at 2:35 am
This is great-- Google already organizes my life so I am glad to find templates to do this for me... I would have ended up trying to do the same thing on my own.
My biggest challenge? Well, my guy's family lives on the East Coast... my family lives on the West Coast... and I am currently living in South Africa trying to figure out how to plan a wedding in the United States. Need I say more? -
February 17, 2010 at 3:53 am
I got engaged on November 6th and our obstacles is that it is quite overwhelming for me. The costs, the decisions and choices: I just don't know how to make them! I have been searching and searching and still don't have a venue or photographer. I had a venue but they backed out on me. and on top of it all, my fiancee just lost his job :( Thanks for the opportunity! xo.
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February 17, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I proposed to my girlfriend 2 days ago (she said yes) and so far so good. I don't really have any problems to report so far, but I know of quite a few that will be coming down the road. My Fiance is currently unemployed and her and I will be paying for our wedding our selves. Budget is going to be a big issue. We both want a beautiful wedding, be we know we are going to have to cut corners and compromise on a lot of things. Finding ways to cut cost drastically with out cutting the quality drastically will definitely be a challenge.
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February 18, 2010 at 5:28 am
My fiance and I are working in CHINA, just got engaged and are going to do it on a 3 week trip home in July- only 4.5 months from now!! Planning a wedding from the other side of the globe? That's a bit of a challenge. Paying for it on Chinese salaries? BIG challenge!
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February 18, 2010 at 2:50 pm
Besides the obvious very tight budget constraints, my biggest challenge has been, and still is, narrowing down all the ideas and inspirations that I have accumulated into a cohesive whole. The wedding is now less than 6 months away and it's time to decide on the details and focus, focus, focus! But it's difficult with so many new ideas and inspirations I find daily, especially here on SMP : )
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February 18, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Colors, food, drinks, favors, THE DRESS..........not to mention this is my 2nd wedding and my wonderful fiance's first. So many questions and so few answers to be found. Google Docs has helped me get organized but planning a ceremony in Texas that we are paying for ourselves has been difficult - to say the least :). I want everything to be perfect for him and exciting for my daughter (3 yrs old) but I want to be sure I'm doing everything right for a second wedding. Help :(
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February 18, 2010 at 4:50 pm
The biggest planning challenges? Let's see... Finding enough (but not too much time to actually do the planning without driving ourselves crazy or neglecting our many other obligations (school for him, work and a bar exam for me!). Really it's hard to feel like I'm bringing my many ideas to life in a way that feels like us and that feels like it will be a coherent event. I'm trying to balance making our wedding feel like Kris and Elizabeth and planning a fun party that our families won't think is too weird or disjointed. But most importantly I feel challenged to keep in mind at all times how excited we are to make this promise and to have our favorite people there!
Google docs will help with the tiny detail that everyone is in a different state: I'm in Ohio, he's in Illinois, m parents are in Florida! Hurray for being able to work remotely on al of these lists and such! -
February 18, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Great giveaway! One of the many challenges my fiance and I have faced is finding a venue within our budget. We want a beach wedding and the beach that's closest to us is almost an hour away. We have had many of our family members complain that they don't want to travel. But at the end of the day it's OUR wedding and it's what we want. We are sticking to our guns on this one!
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February 18, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Chris and I were engaged this past January and nearly everyday, we've been busily researching some aspect of our wedding. Since we are resident physicians with very little free time together, our biggest challenge has been organizing our finds, likes and dislikes, and sharing them with each other.
Google docs has helped to bridge this gap and bring us even closer to plan this momentous event in our lives! -
February 19, 2010 at 5:30 pm
i met tom through a mutual friend, we hit it right off. god was and is still a big part of our lives! we are both been disabled due to worrk problems. i would like this to be the very special wedding! we are both short of money and we plan on getting married in august of 2011. i would really appreciat it if you could help us, please? our biggest challanges are money and time, getting all this prepared in the right way. my new to be husband has (no) clothes to wear! I would love to have you do our wedding for us, please!
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February 20, 2010 at 9:52 am
Our biggest challenge was choosing a reception venue. Being members of a small town church, it was difficult to find a reception site that was close enough and met all of our needs. Luckily, a friend told me to try out a local metro park and ta-da! It was perfect for us!
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February 22, 2010 at 12:00 am
The biggest challenge is having a million ideas and not having a budget to work with. My fiance is currently unemployed and I am working at a low-wage job, and we are looking to relocate this summer where we hope to find jobs that we can start saving up for our wedding in 2011. We know the kind of wedding we want but we don't know yet how much we'll be able to afford, and the fear of going into debt kind of takes away a lot of the fun of planning our wedding. I look on SMP everyday for inspiration and have all these ideas, but every time I share my excitement with my fiance it feels like I'm adding more pressure on him. He has to reign me in and remind me that we may not have the money to do everything we want. Luckily we are both designers and we will be able to make a lot of things ourselves.
It would be very helpful to have just one wedding consultation to find out if our plans are reasonable and on what kind of budget, because our ideas are simple and inexpensive but we need to have our wedding in different parts at three different locations and that could really add up. We have always wanted to go to Scotland, so we plan to go there for our honeymoon but to save money we want to elope there by ourselves. But we want to include our families too, who are in different parts of the country and can't afford to travel, so we want to have a reception for my family in New England on the beach, and a backyard tea party reception for his family in the midwest. I think any of those could be done inexpensively, but combining them might be quite a financial undertaking. I may need a reality check or some thoughtful ways to combine those into just one or two events to plan and pay for.
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February 22, 2010 at 10:38 am
As most others have mentioned, the biggest challenge is working within a limited budget!
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February 22, 2010 at 5:20 pm
The biggest challenge has been having family and friends flung far and wide across the globe, so I couldn't go to try on dresses with my bridesmaids or stuff envelopes with my Grandma. But I'm very excited to see all of my loved ones together in one place for the wedding!
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February 22, 2010 at 8:06 pm
Ever since I got engaged last October, the wedding planning has become my second full-time job. We've been interviewing so many vendors that I can barely remember which is which. We found that the biggest challenge throughout the whole planning process is to keep track of all the pricing info as well as the package details that various vendors offer. We've literally collected a full box of vendor's booklets. However, with this awesome Google doc, I will be able to organize them all in excel. This is making my life so much easier! =D
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February 23, 2010 at 1:42 pm
I am planning a destination wedding in the Bahamas and the most challenging part is the communication between the various contacts I have there, my fiance and myself. Working full time and planning a wedding in a different country, on a budget, is not easy. I want the event to be a success and for everyone involved to have a fantastic time, but I'm not having the most fantastic time working through all of the details. Thank Google! for their amazing planning templates, they've kept me sane.
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February 23, 2010 at 2:45 pm
My girlfriend and I just got engaged with a wedding date of October 29, 2010, so we are jumping in feet-first to wedding planning. One major challenge is integrating our faith backgrounds. Her family is Religious Science (think New Age, universalist) and mine is very, very Irish Catholic. Because we're both women, we can't get married in the Catholic Church, so we're working hard to find ways to honor both our backgrounds while also making a personal, unique ceremony.
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February 24, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Wow -- gotta say I'm intimidated by all the women posting here! I'm happy to hear the Google docs has some new wedding templates to lend a hand. Biggest challenge so far? Since we're paying for the wedding ourselves, I think our parents feel bad telling us things that they want us to do. It's definitely been a challenge to get them to volunteer exactly what traditions they want. Hope we win as some expert advice on well -- EVERYTHING -- would be nice! Going to try out the new Google docs now!
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February 24, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I got engaged Thanksgiving weekend, and we're getting married Easter weekend. With our relatively short timeline, I thought that we would endure stress with only four months of planning. However, our biggest challenges have been controlling the guest list and being grounded with our ideas to stay near our budget!
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February 24, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Just starting the process. Trying to figure out a date AND a location - who knew the basics could be so challenging!
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February 25, 2010 at 3:43 pm
BALANCE. Balancing our wish to make this intimate and the families' who want a royal wedding. Balancing who is invited and who is not. Balancing my Asian culture with his Midwestern traditions. Balancing my ethereal dreams with the economic reality. Balancing and respecting our friends and families and making this as much as a celebration of us as them.
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March 3, 2010 at 1:35 am
LOGISTICS. We're getting married at Soldier Field in Chicago in August. I'm a gigantic Bears fan and the Colonnades are really beautiful, so this is a dream location for us. However, the NFL does not release its preseason schedule until late March, so we could get bumped for a game!! We've reserved the Friday and the Saturday on our weekend and have to wait and see what our actual date is. This makes reserving other vendors tricky. Basically we just have to be really organized so that the minute the announcement is made, we can move forward. . .Full Steam AHEAD!!
I was already using Google Docs to include my mom (who lives in New Jersey) in all the wedding planning. These templates make that soooo much easier. Thanks!
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March 4, 2010 at 3:39 am
Wow ... I'm previewing the Google Docs Template and I'm amazed at the depth of the topic covered there!! Will definitely use it for my upcoming wedding preparation.
Well ... The challenge that I will be facing is distance. The wedding will be held in my fiance's hometown, Palembang, Indonesia, which is some 13,000 miles away from Seattle, where I currently live and work. And to add to the drama, I couldn't be involved in the wedding itself until few months before the wedding date, due to work limitation! So I'm crossing my fingers here ... ;)
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March 7, 2010 at 6:04 pm
I am just delving into these templates to start planning our guest list. Thanks for the work you've done for all of us!
Our biggest challenge is time. I would love to do a million creative things to make this party fun and beautiful, and really my guy and I have to do a lot of it ourselves to save money. I have to keep reminding myself that I am not superwoman, and I don't have time to work, go to school, plan a wedding and make everything by hand. I would love to be able to wrap all of our friends and family in fun, handmade knit items for a cool October event, but in the interest of time and sanity (and reality) I have to pick and choose my big projects for our event. What gets done by hand will be that much more meaningful and beautiful on that day. (It's a good lesson for my own life too... dream big, but be realistic in your expectations of yourself.)
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March 9, 2010 at 5:05 pm
My challenge is figuring out how it is best to do everything chronologically. It's like the chicken or egg dilemma, I feel like each and every decision affect all of the others! (as they should). I am just starting out and I still feel like a little girl playing house, so I'll take all the tips I can get! :-)
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March 10, 2010 at 9:04 pm
YAY Google!! I was using it to plan anyway! This makes it that much easier!
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March 10, 2010 at 9:26 pm
Wait I didnt really enter the giveaway!! The biggest challenge so far has been the fact that we are very oxymoron-ish.
We are planning a very traditional Catholic ceremony (with arras. a lasso and Gregorian chanters!!) infused with our modern rock gothic style (yea I dont know how it will happen but it should be great) followed by a reception in a local park where we want an organic relaxed kid friendly feel with lots of candles, great food and lots of fun (we are planning on balloon animals, a pinata and maybe a moon bounce.)
We are very gracious people when it comes to hosting and its important for us to try our best to make this crazy conglomerate of a wedding vision come to life and be something that is memorable; we want people to leave with the thought of being really glad that they attended.
We aren't really sure how it will all come together and we are having trouble explaining it all as its a little offbeat. A little help from a professional will give us (especially my mother) the confidence and ability to pull off a great event!!Thanks for the opportunity and again YAY GOOGLE!!!
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March 11, 2010 at 11:52 pm
I am planning a wedding in 3 months and I'm really not crazy about event planning. We just bought a home with 6 acres so we are planning to have it here. I have a barn, 2 goats, patio, garden, orchard. I think there's a lot of possiblities.
~Julie
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March 12, 2010 at 12:00 am
First off, I love Style Me Pretty and have been using this site for all of my ideas and inspiration! So thank you for all that publish for your readers. Absolutely love it!
My fiance and I recently got engaged in Nov. '09. Our first challenge is financial planning. Neither of our parents will be able to assist us financially with our wedding, so we'll be paying for 100 percent of it out of our own pocket.
Our next challenge has been trying to find the perfect venue. What's been tough is that we found a venue (Dana Point) that we're in love with, but not certain if this is really within our budget. We've looked elsewhere, but haven't found anything that we love.
Choosing the right colors have been tough! If only it was customary to have two weddings then I could do everything that I envision. I think wedding planning overall can be overwhelming when there's so many choices to make; and i don't just mean picking colors.
If money was no option, in a perfect world, planning your dream wedding would be a spectacular affair and every girls dream.
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March 20, 2010 at 11:53 pm
I googled it! I've always wanted a dream wedding but, budget constraints limited us. Well, it's our 30th wedding anniversary this October 2010. And, with all our triumphs (being blessed with 2 boys and 1 girl and 2 grandchildren) and tribulations (that’s a long story) that we have gone through I decided to try to do something special...so I googled it!
I googled "wedding anniversary planner", and up comes "Free Wedding Planner" by Google. There was templates galore and so much information, ideas, inspirations than I ever expected. I googled "affordable wedding venues" and found this beautiful serene affordable place to have a wedding. Plan B, is the back yard.
I would love the opportunity to receive help from a person of expertise, Ms. Michelle Rago. I just loved her showcase of wedding events with the beautiful table settings. I know I could never afford anything like that but, maybe I can receive some ideas of how I can have something just as beautiful…something to truly remember.
Thank you!
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May 20, 2010 at 2:58 pm
Very informative entry.
This is irrelevant, but what is your favorite soil conditioning fertilizer? I've tried Pro-Gro on my vegetable garden, but I don't know how happy I am with the results. Anyone have suggestions?
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June 22, 2010 at 9:25 am
I love the way the Google docs has done to my sister’s wedding. I was the wedding coordinator and it was so easy for me to organize their guests who will be invited. I was amazed of the templates of the guest list because it was detail on the event and I have used other templates in making my moviemaker with the help of Flicker.com. I am pretty sure that these Google docs will help me as event coordinator. Thank you so much…
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July 1, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Google Docs has made it so much easier for me to carry out my wedding! It is really amazing how easy it makes it to cooperate as a team!
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August 11, 2010 at 6:12 pm
I absolutely love google docs. I have it open right beside me while I work. What great and helpful article. Good tips.
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October 23, 2010 at 11:43 am
[...]However, with this awesome Google doc, I will be able to organize them all in excel. This is making my life so much easier! [...]
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October 23, 2010 at 11:44 am
[...] planning your wedding, you can now take advantage of Google Docs new free templates that Style Me Pretty has put together with Google Docs that will definitely help you plan your wedding a lot easier. Go [...]
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November 13, 2010 at 10:57 am
We are moving our documents and calendaring to Google docs and Google calendars. It will make it easier to work with our staff and clients.
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December 2, 2010 at 2:45 pm
I know so many people (wedding planners & brides) who will be able to put this to use...Accolades to Google once again. This template can actually be used for just about any type of event.
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January 10, 2011 at 6:19 am
Our office started using Google Docs and Calendar a couple years ago because it was hard to track three people who are on the road every day.
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February 10, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Hey, I just discovered googles new site compiling a whole set of free wedding tools: http://www.google.com/weddings/
Where you guys involved in this, too? -
February 28, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Thank you! I've just started planning, but I know from my general life pattern that my biggest challenge is going to be organizing everything I run across into one coherent, usable whole--so far I have various bookmarks and notations on my work computer, work laptop, personal laptop, and iPad! (Phew!) So this should be a great help; my fiance and I have already been using Google Docs for our guest list, and I look forward to incorporating all our other wedding details and we plan them out.
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July 21, 2011 at 1:06 am
I love Google docs for my business- so great that it's making its way into brides' hands now. Look forward to hearing how the collaboration goes!
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August 22, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Nice write-up. I visit this site regularly. Thanks for the article posting. I sent the link to this page to a few people that I know that have an interest in reading this. Thanks.
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October 17, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Hi there, I desperately want to be able to use the googledocs wedding planning templates but none of them seem to be working on googledocs for some reason... It won't let me copy any of the Style me pretty templates. Am in a real panic when it comes to wedding planning and could really do with some help! Does anyone know how I can download the template/s? Thanks!
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October 21, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Thank you for some other wonderful post. Where else may anybody get that kind of info in such a perfect manner of writing? I've a presentation next week, and I am at the search for such info.
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March 13, 2012 at 11:28 pm
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[...] to each template. StyleMePretty is also hosting a sweepstakes and asking engaged couples to share their wedding planning experiences. One randomly selected winner will receive free consultation [...]
[...] planning your wedding, you can now take advantage of Google Docs new free templates that Style Me Pretty has put together with Google Docs that will definitely help you plan your wedding a lot easier. Go [...]
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[...] might be surprising if they weren’t into pretty much everything. They’ve teamed up with Style Me Pretty to offer 20 (easily shareable) Google Doc templates to help couples plan their wedding. I must [...]
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