Communication 2

How to Project Manage Your Wedding
In short, project management is the planning, organizing, motivating, and

controlling resources towards specific goals. (Sounds like what you’re
already been doing for your wedding planning, right?)
A project is a temporary task in which has a unique result with a

beginning and an end. There are time constraints, funding, and deliverables
that are all involved. Now you’re probably thinking, “Hey, this is exactly what
I’ve been doing for my wedding!”
I do feel that my Project Management background has served me very well in

planning our wedding. At work, I’m measured on how much savings or
improvement I bring to our group and if I can do it within a set time frame.
Who couldn’t use that in their wedding?
You know, things like cutting costs on a cake in order to splurge on a

dress? While there are checklists galore out for telling brides what to do at
certain time points before the wedding, I’d like to share with you how I’ve
been managing our wedding planning process from a Project Manager’s
perspective.
Project Management has five main steps:

1 • Initiating: Yea! You’re engaged! Start by deciding on the scope for your
wedding, and which aspects are most important to you.
2 • Planning & Design: Getting clear on the look, feel, and aesthetic details,
as well as the where and when.
3 • Executing: Choosing your venue, deciding on a caterer, putting deposits

down to secure your DJ, flowers, cake, photography, and whatever else you
have chosen.
4 • Monitoring & Controlling: Ensuring every one of your vendors are

aligned with dates & details, and expectations for their services on your
wedding day.
5 • Completion: Party time! It’s your wedding day!
For the DIY brides that want to manage their wedding themselves, without
a Wedding Manager… I mean, Wedding Planner… I’ll break this up a little
further for you:
1 • Initiating
After our engagement, we established a timeline and a budget. We knew we

wanted at least a year before our wedding to save. After crunching numbers,
we decided on 15 months after our engagement and chose a date around
the time frame we felt would have meaning to us.
Really take a look at what dates you are trying to aim for. Are you looking to
hold your wedding in 12 months? Then consider how much you are able to
save within those 12 months and how much do you already have saved?
If you don’t have any savings at the start and you’re able to save
$500/month, then in 12 months you’d have $6,000 to work with. Don’t plan
on a $10k+ budget on a 12-month timeline. The math simply does not work
out in your favor here, and you don’t want to go into debt for a wedding.
I’ve had friends who started out with a figure they wanted to spend on their
wedding and had what they *thought* was a plan, only to wind up with
thousands of dollars in credit card debt by their wedding dates. A little
upfront planning and knowing what means you have to work with helps
tremendously!
2 • Planning & Design
After we set our budget and timeline, we began listing what we wanted in our
wedding and assigned costs to each item. Mostly, these were rough
estimates but the total for everything added up to our spending goal. I must
admit, my love of Excel and spreadsheets comes in closely after the love for
my fiancé. I created an Excel Budget spreadsheet of all the expenses we
would have for the wedding that can easily calculate this for me!
Now here is where all of those handy bridal timelines will come in helpful.
Create a timeline with dates of when you need to accomplish each task
based on the date you’ve chosen so you’ll stay on track with your planning.
I’ve also created spreadsheets listing the guests we’d like to invite, in order to
start generating a headcount. How many adults do you plan to invite? Are
kids invited? These numbers and questions will play into estimates from
vendors like your caterer and how many invitations to order.
Tip – as you’re filling out your Christmas cards this year, add the addresses
to your wedding guest list for those you plan to invite. It’ll save you time
searching for them later!
3 • Executing
This is where you begin calling and securing your vendors and establishing
what is expected from them. That Excel spreadsheet I made came in handy
here. It’s a living document and I’m constantly updating it. Once I have actual
prices and quotes from vendors, I’m able to plug in actual costs. If something
is higher priced than we expected, we’ll just have to make sacrifices in other
areas to stay within budget.
Tip – when we’re looking for suppliers at work, whether it be for tooling or
materials quotes we’re required to have quotes from three different suppliers
before making a decision. While it may not be practical for every aspect of
your wedding, I’ve found it’s a good rule of thumb to lean on.
For instance, when I was choosing flowers, I spent time speaking with a

local florist to establish an estimated cost range. For the flowers I wanted,
this ran about $700. Then, I checked out Sam’s Club prearranged packages.
These came to roughly $300. After that, I priced out bulk flowers for DIY
arrangements. This again came to roughly $300 for what I would want!
In the end, Sam’s provided what I felt would be the best value to me. Since I
did thorough comparisons, I feel very confident in my decision. When we
created our initial budget, we estimated we’d be spending $500 on
flowers. Had we gone with the florist, we’d be $200 over budget. Now that
we’ve chosen Sam’s Club arrangements, we’re $200 under budget! Yea!
Now the word ‘Control’ may set off images of a Bridezilla, but that’s not what I
mean here. I’m not sending out meeting invites or project status updates on a
daily or weekly basis to our wedding party. I am, however, giving them heads
up here and there as things start coming together.
During this phase of wedding project management, you also continue to

monitor your progress. Ensure your vendors and budget are still on track and
on time by thoroughly tracking your spending – something many wedding
checklists leave out.
You made your budget at the very start of your wedding, but are you still on
track? Granted, you may have only gone over your invitation budget by $20,
and your flower budget by $50 which may not seem like a lot but these
overages add up quickly! It’s important to frequently review your overall
spending and check to see if you’re still on target to meet your initial budget.
Monitoring Progress
In regards to monitoring, this week I sent a quick email to my caterer asking

for more clarification on a few items. I needed to verify children’s menu
pricing & age restrictions, and also how many entrees we were allowed to
have within our price point. I’m getting ready to start preparing my wedding
invitations and want to include meal options on the RSVPs that I order. Are
we allowed two entrees at the price point I had been expecting, or can we
choose three? I then went back and was able to adjust my Excel
spreadsheet budget based on the caterer’s responses. (Bonus, the info I
found out from my caterer brought me under budget again!)
Also understand that things can go wrong during your planning. Are you

planning an outdoor wedding? What will you do if it rains? Start considering
worst-case scenarios and if it’s worth it to you to have a backup plan. I’ll use
my flowers again. After reading online reviews from other brides, while the
majority were positive, there were a few instances where their orders were
canceled right before the wedding. What would I want to do if this happens to
me? Well, I feel I’m pretty laid back. I know in the back of my mind running to
the local Costco or Sam’s Club and grabbing a few bouquets of the fresh
flower cuts they already have in stock wouldn’t be the end of the world to me.
Completion
The final phase of wedding project management is completion. This is your

finish line, where everything you’ve worked so hard organizing and planning
for comes together! Sure, surprises may come up that you hadn’t accounted
for, it’s Murphy’s Law. But, overall since you’ve spent time focusing on your
budget, timing, and organizing and informing everyone, the overall Wedding
should run smoothly!
That is where either your timing, your budget, or scope of your project cannot
be changed without affecting one another. All of these center around the goal
of ‘Quality’ (For wedding planning, I’d suggest changing ‘quality’ to ‘overall
wedding experience’). You should also check out this post on the Good,
Fast, Cheap theory.
Think of the ‘scope’ constraint to be all of your wedding details

(Photographer, venue, caterer, etc). If one changes, are you still within
budget? Can they still meet your wedding date? And how will this affect
your wedding experience as a whole?
I hope this overview of wedding project management was helpful to you!

Keep all of these in mind while planning your wedding, review them on a
frequent basis to make sure everything is within your parameters and you’re
sure to stay within your target wedding experience!

Communication 2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Communication 2

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Communication 2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

How to Project Manage Your Wedding

In short, project management is the planning, organizing, motivating, and

A project is a temporary task in which has a unique result with a

I do feel that my Project Management background has served me very well in

You know, things like cutting costs on a cake in order to splurge on a

Project Management has five main steps:

3 • Executing: Choosing your venue, deciding on a caterer, putting deposits

4 • Monitoring & Controlling: Ensuring every one of your vendors are

5 • Completion: Party time! It’s your wedding day!

After our engagement, we established a timeline and a budget. We knew we

2 • Planning & Design

For instance, when I was choosing flowers, I spent time speaking with a

During this phase of wedding project management, you also continue to

In regards to monitoring, this week I sent a quick email to my caterer asking

Also understand that things can go wrong during your planning. Are you

The final phase of wedding project management is completion. This is your

Think of the ‘scope’ constraint to be all of your wedding details

I hope this overview of wedding project management was helpful to you!

You might also like