Today I’m sharing with you the six most important templates in your wedding planning toolkit. Spoiler alert, all of these items can be found in our template shop and listeners of the show get 10% off with the code PODCAST10. This podcast is not about getting you to buy. 

Before we get into today’s episode, I wanted to take a second to welcome our new listeners as well as thank our OG listeners for continuing to support the show. I ran into a bartender a few weeks ago and he was like, oh my gosh! My wife is going to be so excited to know we talked! 

I just LOVE meeting you all out in the wild, so if you ever see me out and about or online, please come say hi or send me a DM. Interacting with you all, knowing I’m helping you, fuels my soul. 

So, my friend, are you newly engaged? Is your wedding coming up, or are you a wedding vendor? I’d love to know!

If you’ve been listening for a while, you know my love for systems, processes, templates, and spreadsheets runs deep.

Planning a wedding can be a daunting task, especially if you’ve never planned one before. As a veteran planner, I know that having the right spreadsheets and templates makes a world of difference.

Not only do they ensure you don’t forget something crucial, they also save you so much time. In this post, we'll look at the spreadsheets and wedding planning templates I wish I had when starting my own wedding planning business.

Before we jump in – if you've been a wedding planner for less than two years, I would love to invite you to sign up for my new coaching program. I'm passionate about helping new wedding planners master the business side of things, so they can get back to creating amazing experiences for their clients. I think it’s important to support the next generation of planners. Goodness knows I can’t do this forever, and I would love to coach YOU. You can find out more about it at verveeventco.com/coach.

Now, let's talk about the six must-have wedding planning templates I wish I had when I started my wedding planning business.

  1. Wedding Vendor Email Templates

Finding the right vendors and selecting the right packages of services is one of the most important things you'll do at the beginning of planning a wedding. When you first start out, knowing what questions to ask vendors can be overwhelming. That's why having a pre-made template to help guide you can be a lifesaver. This template should include all of the questions you need to ask each vendor, including the caterer, florist, and DJ. It also should include specific details about your event to expedite the quote process. 

When I started my business, I basically saved each template I sent to each vendor and kept adding to it each time. 

For hair and makeup, I specified how many people needed services, the timeline for the day, and asked about their cancellation policy.

For photographers, it’s important to include a timeline for the day so you know how many hours you actually need them. Spoiler alert, you probably need them for longer than you think.

If you’re a wedding planner, I encourage you to avoid having to reinvent the wheel each time you email a vendor. Making templates saves you so much time (and stress) during a busy season.

If you want to save even more time, just grab our wedding vendor email template pack in the wedding planning template shop, which is at shop.verveeventco.com. 

 2. Wedding Timelines

At my wedding planning company Verve Event Co., we’re known for planning wedding day timelines down to the MINUTE. These ensure that our couples can enjoy their wedding day without thinking about the time. Time management is essential when it comes to executing a wedding day. As a couple, it’s important to think through this closely so that you can avoid the dreaded awkward segues from one event to the next that many of our couples have told us they hate at other people’s weddings. 

While timelines are not the most “exciting” part of planning a wedding, they're the backbone of a successful day! 

Having a solid and detailed timeline also ensures the vendors are moving through the day in a cohesive manner as one team.

For my planners out there, whether you’ve been hired for day-of coordination or full planning and design, a detailed wedding timeline will help you stay on schedule. It helps your vendors prepare before the wedding, ensures you don’t have to ask the photographer for two extra hours, and that catering starts serving food when the DJ is about to introduce someone for a blessing. 

Of course, if you want help with your timeline, we have a timeline bundle in the wedding planning template shop. It’s a bundle because there are three timelines included – one for getting ready, one for the ceremony, and one for the cocktail hour and reception. 

 3. Wedding Day Master Organizer

If you follow my wedding planning company Verve or the podcast on Instagram, you’ve seen our bible for the wedding day: our Wedding Day Master Organizer aka our production books. 

Every wedding needs a centralized location to keep track of all the details to ensure that on the day of the event, everything is set up correctly and nothing is forgotten. There are a lot of details to manage. I know how overwhelming it can be for couples and planners out there. 

Last-minute changes are unavoidable in event planning. A master organizer that easily tracks the changes makes your work much more manageable. In our organizer, we keep track of the vendors, their contact information, every piece of decor that's arriving and departing on the day of the event, our guest lists, and so much more.

This Day of Organizer took me YEARS to perfect. Literally years. Now I’m making custom ones for specific venues that we work with often that include the nuances for each place. 

I hemmed and hawed about whether to add this to our template shop because I feel like it’s my secret weapon to our amazing weddings, but I’m committed to keeping a high standard in our industry and so many of you on our social media asked us for it, so I decided to add it to our shop. So if you want to save yourself the trouble, you can purchase it online at shop.verveeventco.com. The Master Organizer includes a place to keep track of wedding day details, a contact list, a production schedule, timelines, an inventory checklist, and more! It's really a game-changer. For all my planners and TYPE A brides and grooms, you will literally love it. 

4. Wedding Checklist 

Next up is the wedding timeline or checklist. When I say timeline, this is more like your road map or checklist for all your wedding planning tasks.

The Knot gives you one, but it lists like five things to do each month. We all know, that if you’re spending almost two hours every other day planning your wedding, you’re doing more than just five things a month. While I can appreciate the simplicity, I feel like it does couples and planners a disservice.

Our checklist takes you month by month and gets into the nitty gritty of many of the tasks. I won’t get too detailed into what you should do each month because I already do that in Episode 11 of the podcast. If you want to avoid feeling like the blind leading the blind, you can grab my checklist in the wedding planning template shop at shop.verveeventco.com.

5. Wedding Budget 

That brings me to the next template, which is the budget! Yes, I know we talked a lot about budgeting in Episode 114 with Rachel Cruze, I also talked more about budgeting and wedding finances in Episodes 21, 72, and 75. I talk more about them on our blog, so you can just go to verveeventco.com/blog and search budget and a whole list of blogs and podcast episodes will come up.

The budget, like your wedding checklist is crucial to your wedding planning tool kit because they go hand in hand. The checklist reminds you of all your tasks, while the budget tracks how much all these tasks cost!

Our budget bundle in the template shop takes it a step further and gives you a vendor payment chart so you know when each vendor needs to get paid and also track the cash flow and be able to plan for when you have a lot of payments due at the same time.

When you have fifteen vendors and each one has a different payment schedule, you can easily miss a payment or two. Our spreadsheets help you keep track of it all.

 6. Styled Shoot Bundle.

As a beginner wedding planner, booking dream wedding clients might be a challenge without a solid portfolio. In this case, you can consider diving into the world of styled shoots. These staged events are designed to create picture-perfect moments for your portfolio. If this is something you want to pursue, I have a timeline and shot list bundle, as well as a Styled Shoot mini course for you to ensure you make the most of your time and money invested!

Wedding Planner Templates for Couples and New Wedding Planners

Planning a wedding can be overwhelming, but don't let that discourage you. With the resources you have at your disposal, like the spreadsheets and templates in our shop, our podcast, Google, etc. I hope I’ve helped you break down the wedding planning into manageable, digestible chunks.

Please utilize all the free resources on our blog and of course, use our templates in the shop. If you’re a new planner and want help growing and scaling your wedding business, I would love to work with you one-on-one, so make sure you sign up for my new coaching program at verveeventco.com/coach.

And that wraps up today’s episode. I hope this episode helped you put together a mental checklist of all the tools you can add to your wedding planning toolkit. If you have questions, I’m more than happy to answer them! As always, feel free to DM me on IG at @asktheplannerpodcast. I respond to everyone –  you can also leave a voicemail on our wedding planning hotline at 585-210-3467.

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