DIY Wedding Planner Tip: Gmail

For most, planning a wedding is a lot of work, especially for those of us who do it without hiring a planner. With so much information to keep track of, there’s one tip I’d recommend relentlessly to every bride:

Create a gmail account for your wedding.

Here's why:

If you already have a gmail account for yourself, you can access your wedding email from your personal account, and switch between accounts with one click.

You can grant access to anyone you want – say, your fiancé?

You can create category folders and easy-to-read labels for the emails in those folders:

You can edit the color and appearance, but the labels show up like this:

You can create filters for those labels. For example, you can create a filter so that every email containing the word “RSVP” is automatically labeled “RSVP” and placed in the RSVP category folder. Makes it pretty easy:

Finally, it means keeping all of your wedding stuff in one organized place. Use it with your caterer,  put it on your wedding website for guests, and even subscribe to wedding blogs and newsletters without worrying about “wedding” taking over your personal or work inbox.

All of that said, I’ve got one last suggestion:

Try RSVP by email.

Here’s why:

Most everyone uses email these days, right? So take the leap. It saves paper and postagecosts, and the added convenience on both ends will be worth it.**

It’s a lot quicker than snail mail.So that’s great for you. And it’s a lot more convenientfor most guests, with no extra trip to the post office.

It allows guest to include a personal message, and – if you want – you can reply. I found these little conversations to be a great excuse for some personal contact.

**Worried about guests who aren’t so tech-savvy? We put our phone numbers in the RSVP section, writing that they may also call to RSVP.