When you first dig into the details of planning your wedding, you quickly find things can quickly become disorganized and quite overwhelming. There’s a lot to keep track of when planning a wedding, but one great way to help make sure nothing is forgotten is to choose some good wedding planning software, then using that wedding planning software to make sure the best day of your life goes off without a hitch!
Now wedding planning software is not just for brides. In fact, it might be a better idea to have someone else in charge of keeping track of all the details. The bride is nervous, excited and stressed out enough about this big day in her life, so wedding planning software can be purchased for use by a professional wedding planner, a great friend, family member, or someone else who’s placed in charge of keeping track of the wedding planning details.
Before buying wedding planning software, you’ll want to look around at various offers. Be sure to compare not just prices, but see what kinds of features are offered in the wedding planning software packages you’re thinking about buying too. You can get started by searching for wedding planning software with any search engine online, and maybe look for wedding planning software reviews too. This way you’ll be able to see how others like the specific wedding planning software packages you’re thinking about buying.
Now, what features and capabilities should your wedding planning software have?
1. Expense tracking. Good wedding planning software should offer some kind of way to track expenses and help keep you within budget. Some weddings can run as high as $20,000 or more before everything is said and done, but by tracking all of the related expenses in your wedding planning software, you’ll be able to make sure you can meet or beat the budget you’ve allowed for various wedding expenses.
2. Guest Tracking. Your wedding planning software should be able to track however many guests you intend to have at your wedding. Good wedding planning software won’t limit you to just 100 guest entries either, it should be able to handle the really big weddings too.
Other key points about guest tracking that your wedding planning software should be able to handle include all the little things like: Are they coming from out of town? Do they need help finding accomodations? What gifts did they give you and have you sent a thank you card yet? Did they attend various events such as the bridal shower or rehersal?
3. Reception Seating. Great wedding planning software will even allow you to help figure out the seating arrangements for your wedding reception! Seating can be extremely important and complicated at any wedding, and the larger it is the harder things seem to be. Having wedding planning software which helps you manage this though, will help prevent any major disasters on that special day. You wouldn’t want to sit Aunt Edna and Uncle Joe together – or even at the same table – if they recently went through a nasty divorce right? So look for wedding planning software which has features that can help you make sure no mistakes of this sort will happen.
4. Reception Details. Great wedding planning software should also allow you to manage all the misc details about the reception too: What foods will be served, what catering company will be used, where will the reception be located, what entertainment will there be, etc. These are all important wedding details that must be arranged and kept track of, so any good wedding planning software should offer a way to do so.
There are many other features you’ll find in great wedding planning software. These could include: Music management, vow and ceremonial details management, and having misc checklists and todo lists readily available. So when you’re looking around for great wedding planning software, keep in mind all the minute details that will need to be tracked, and be sure the wedding planning software you choose offers those for you.

The engagement party is a time when the families of the couple will get to know one another. In some cases, this might be the first meeting between the two families or groups of friends and any icebreaker activity will be a welcome event.

In that light, whoever plans the engagement party (likely the bride’s family, but it can be the engaged couple or anyone else who wants to plan the party) should plan a few games and activities designed to help everyone get to know everyone else.

First up is a trivia game. Create a “Trivial Pursuit” type game with questions about the bride and groom’s lives. You might contain the questions to just facts and events relating to both the bride and groom (such as how long did it take her to say “yes” when he asked, where did he propose, where did they meet, etc), or you can include questions pertaining to their lives outside of each other and before they met each other. Not only can this be fun, but also it’s an entertaining way for people to get to know each other and the engaged couple better.

One popular icebreaker that’s used at corporate functions and company parties can also work really well at engagement parties. Tape a card to each person’s back and encourage him or her to work the room, mingle with everyone and particularly try to get to know someone they have never met before. Before moving on to someone else, be sure to make a comment about the person on the card on his or her back. Partiers write an impression of that person, such as “she seems sweet” or “he knows a lot about the weather”.

This icebreaker ends when the mingling session is over. The cards are then read one by one and people not only get to know each other better, but enjoy hearing all the comments people made about them. Try to ensure that comments are complimentary or somehow presented in a positive light. Hurtful comments, obviously, are not appropriate.

If this is truly the first time many of the guests have met, then another fun game involving the wearing of cards might be in order. In this game, each guest wears a card on their front that has their name on the front and a number on the back. They don’t share with anyone what their number is. Guests mingle and chat and get to know each other over the course of the evening.

Toward the end of the evening, the cards are flipped over and the number side is shown. Everyone gets a piece of paper and writes the numbers on the paper, then tries to correspond the name of someone with their number. This fun game can be hard for people who are bad with names, but it’s fun nonetheless.

For an activity that doesn’t put people on the spot quite so much, consider letting the already marrieds help out the to-be marrieds. Place two pieces of posterboard on the wall and mark them “advice from women” and “advice from men”. Now is the time to offer advice about wedding planning, not about being married. That advice can come later. Encourage guests to offer their own wedding planning advice. The advice from older people at the party could be decidedly different from the younger couples in the group, making for an enlightening group of comments.