Wedding planning help needed!!

amother

Silver

Wed, Oct 05 2016, 7:33 am

BH we are making a wedding Smile

ETA we are the kallah's side, so don't need any info about band, flowers etc.

I would love to hear recommendations for how to keep track of a guest list and responses. Big plus if it also helps to arrange seating. For my sons bar mitzvahs I used a program that I bought and downloaded but unfortunately the files got deleted. I now have to start creating my lists again from scratch and therefore would need to get started ASAP. I googled and got all kinds of places, mostly cloud based, and I want to make sure it's user friendly and reliable before I go ahead and start entering tons of info.

Any ideas? Would also take any suggestions about keeping sane while planning a wedding in the NY area. Please feel free to chime in!

Thanks!

doctorima

Wed, Oct 05 2016, 10:13 am

We used a simple Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all guest names, addresses, responses, gifts, etc. I'm sure there are fancier and more expensive programs, but Excel worked fine for our needs.

amother

Silver

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 7:41 am

Thanks doctorima. I appreciate yiu taking time to respond. I guess this is not such an interesting topic but was hoping I'd get a few more suggestions. Oh well. Have a nice day.

Raisin

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 7:51 am

doctorima wrote:

We used a simple Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all guest names, addresses, responses, gifts, etc. I'm sure there are fancier and more expensive programs, but Excel worked fine for our needs.

great idea but maybe use a google doc so you can share it easily with the chassans family, chassan and kallah.

(I'm sorry I can't help further...not up to that stage)

groovy1224

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 9:28 am

Raisin wrote:

great idea but maybe use a google doc so you can share it easily with the chassans family, chassan and kallah.

(I'm sorry I can't help further...not up to that stage)

This is exactly what we did. We used an excel sheet as a google doc, so everyone could view and make changes. (the response cards went to the kallahs house, but sometimes someone would call saying they lost their response card but they are/are not coming, etc.) We tracked replies and gifts. We also had made a key for which 'category' of guests they were, to help with seating. So for example S= shul friends, R= relatives, B= friends from the block, etc. Some people fit into more than one category, so they'd get more than one letter, but this system helped us group people together for seating, and to make sure everyone had at least one person at the table they knew.

Obviously, you'll still need to do some shuffling and brainstorming, as some people don't exactly fit anywhere, but it was still very helpful.

amother

Mauve

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 9:49 am

Are ppl still doing seating?
The weddings I've been to in the past 3 yrs have been open seating.
Don't know if this is an option for you.

They had 1-2 family tables for each side
Avery long table for kallahs friends, same on the Chattan side.
And then everyone else sat where ever they wanted

doctorima

Thu, Oct 06 2016, 10:46 am

Mauve I don't know where you live and what circles you're in, but I don't think I've ever been to a wedding that didn't have placecards to tell you what table you're at. I had that at a Bar Mitzvah recently (and thought it was strange), but definitely never at a wedding.