Tip! Share your technical knowledge and make connections with other wedding photographers.

Wedding planning isn’t an easy task. A wedding is an incredibly complicated undertaking – unless you plan to elope or just go downtown to the justice of the peace. For a relatively large, traditional wedding there are many activities and events that you’ll need to track to keep the wedding on schedule.

Now there are people who actually choose to become experts in wedding planning. That’s what they do – day after day. While hiring someone to help you with your wedding can be the perfect solution, it’s not always feasible. A professional wedding planner may charge as much as 10% of the cost of the wedding. For many couples this extra charge is quite sufficient for them to take over their wedding planning themselves. Now there is plenty of software available that can help make this decision a smart one.

In looking at wedding planning software, one feature you definitely want is a calendar. Remember that this is not just a function for keeping track of dates. Your planning software should allow you to set notifications for important events. Wedding planning software usually uses E-mail reminders. And if your mobile telephone has a text-messaging feature, the ability to receive e-mail reminders on your cell phone is a great benefit.

Since wedding planning includes a significant number of tasks, being able to coordinate these tasks is essential in a wedding planning software program. After sending out your wedding invitations, you should be able to easily track who has responded and who hasn’t.

Tip! The Devil is in the Details: All of the extras such as the cake, flowers, decorations, music, and guest favors can break the bank and create a lot of work for the bride. You need to simplify in this area because most of these details are not remembered and sometimes add little to the wedding.

Also your tasks aren’t limited to your wedding ceremony. There are also specific tasks that are associated with the wedding reception which you also must track. Since a seating plan is the norm for a wedding reception, your wedding planning software should help you track the seating arrangements. Also think about gifts. No doubt, you’ll receive many gifts from friends and family. Tracking those gifts so you can send a thank you card is a very handy feature.

Tip! Don’t neglect the business aspect of wedding photography. Learn to manage your business effectively.

Along with scheduling and tracking, wedding planning involves money and budgeting. You really don’t need anything as complicated as QuickBooks or PeachTree, but you do want to be able to monitor your spending so that you don’t end up broke before the ceremony.

Tip! Keep within your financial limits. Budget your wedding.

Another advantage of some wedding planning software is that it allows you to create custom stationary to use for your wedding. This can be a useful overall plus because it can save you a bundle of money. A software program with this feature will usually contain templates that you can use as a guide for creating invitations and any other stationary you might need for your wedding.

Tip! Don’t be shy about speaking up for yourselves. This is your wedding.

The best way to look for wedding planning software is to do a search on Google. You’ll find a variety of options from free online services to low priced online to dedicated software that runs on your PC such as Smart Wedding. You must compare features carefully – free is not always best, so be careful and do some thinking about just what you need and just what you want to do with the software. No matter which wedding planning solution you choose, it’ll make your wedding a lot easier.

Tip! Learn photography before anything else. A wedding photographer is expected to be a master of the craft.

Copyright 2006 Richard Keir

Richard is a writer and educator with a background in clinical psychology, MIS and IT, and more experience with marriage than he really wants to talk about. You can visit Elena’s Completely Weddings at http://Completely-Weddings.com for on weddings and wedding planning.

Filed under: Wedding Planning