6 Crucial Websites for Wedding Planning

Through all the wedding planning, several websites just made things a little easier for us. This week I want to share 6 of the website we used regularly to plan, and helped save, for our wedding.

Pinterest:
One of my very favorite things about planning the wedding was creating a Pinterest board {I mean, who doesn't have a wedding pinterest board?}. However, I created a secret board {now public and visible here} and shared it with my bridesmaids, mom, aunt, and close family friend {who was doing our flowers and decorations}. One of the main reasons this was so much fun is I don't live in the same state as any of them! So the board was an easy fun way to plan, stay in touch, and get ideas from everyone without having to organize phone calls or send out mass emails.

Picmonkey:

Picmonkey.com was a go-to for many of the DIY and stationary projects for our wedding {more on that later}. I used their design feature to create our schedule and contact insert for the welcome bag.

I wish I could take credit for the witty contact card, but truth be told I got the idea {wording and most of the design} from a Pinterest image.

{inspiration}

I also used Picmonkey's design site to create the rehearsal dinner invitations. I was being a little bit picky and couldn't decide between two designs {designs below from zazzle.com}, so I just created my own, merging the two and adding little personal touches.

{inspiration}

{recreation} 

I was able to do a custom card on Zazzle and use the image from picmonkey to create an invitation for super cheap. The amount of money spent on stationary for weddings is astounding! And I just couldn't justify spending that much on something that the majority of people would throw out. 

Zazzle:
Stamps, people. Stamps. If you have't planned your wedding yet, you will need stamps. Save the date = stamps. Invitations = stamps. RSVP cards = stamps. Rehearsal dinner invites = stamps. Thank yous = stamps. Lots and lots of stamps. Zazzle.com is a really cool website in general, but they also do custom stamps {I don't recommend customizing all of your stamps, because that is going to cost a really pretty penny, like thousands of them}. Zazzle offers some really cute stamps and customization, though. We used both customized and designed stamps. They have sales constantly so we were able to spend a little less on stamps than anticipated.

We also used Zazzle for our rehearsal dinner invitations {see above} and customized thank you cards {for those who made the trek to SC} I'm not going to share the surprise for those who haven't received theirs yet, but don't worry, it's on the way!

I used Zazzle for a little additional fun, which was unnecessary, but we were saving in other areas so why not? One of my bridesmaids shared this image on Pinterest.

{inspiration}

Zazzle was having a sale, so we were having bar napkins. Too many times I've been to a wedding and lost my beverage while the cupid shuffle is playing {cupid shuffle + Stef = inevitable white girl dance moves}. But place this handy bar napkin over your drink, and hopefully the wait staff will get the hint.

{recreation}

Minted:
We ordered our invitations and save the dates from minted.com. Their designs are so simple and adorable, and they have discount promotions often.

Etsy:
Etsy.com was used for numerous things as well. The jewelry for my bridesmaids and me came from Etsy, as well as the monogrammed clutches for each bridesmaid.

Link to Jewelry here | Link to Clutch here

Link to Necklace here

The flower girls' chevron dresses were also from Etsy.

Link to Flower Girl Dresses here

Lastly from Etsy, personalized activity pages for children at the reception. We had several children at our wedding, and this was just a small way to help them remain entertained during toast/first dances.

Link to Activity Pages here

Personalized Website:
Through theknot.com we were able to create a custom website where guests could go and obtain information about the wedding, but also about us. One of the main reasons I liked this is it allowed us to keep our invitations very simplistic {kind of the theme of the wedding really}. We didn't want to add a bunch of inserts into our invitations so having details such as transportation and registry information available online was really beneficial for us.

As you can see, a lot of the wedding planning was done online. We also found our photographer, cake baker, and band from online reviews and searches. So I guess Google was pretty key as well. What things have been crucial in your planning?

Thanks for visiting!

Want more wedding planning? See the 10 Tips for the Bride

**professional wedding photos by Dana Cubbage @ danacubbageweddings.com