I’m sure it surprises no one that one of my first wedding related purchases was an Erin Condren Wedding Planner (after all, all you have to do is search this blog and see my addiction issues).  I actually bought it Thanksgiving night (yes the day we got engaged) while they were having a huge 30% off sale, so I got it for a great price, too.

I love that there are so many online organizational tools to help you plan a wedding, but like my planner, I need something physically in my hands that I can write in and flip through.  Online organizational things actually have a tendency to confuse me more, so paper and pens are better for me.  Plus, I can keep the planner as one of my wedding keepsakes and look through it later on; you can’t do that with an online system.

I have loved this lace cover for awhile.  It’s one of Erin Condren’s more common wedding planner covers and you can get it in any color you want.  Most people, I’m sure, get their wedding colors on the planner.  But, I’m not most people.  Plus, we didn’t know our wedding colors when I ordered this (still only sort of figured them out), so I just went with a color that I liked.

Obviously there aren’t actually pound symbols on our planner, just there for a touch of privacy.  🙂

It’s so pretty isn’t it?

There are the typical Erin Condren touches as you open the planner, such as the pouch (that I’m actually using this time, since there may be business cards and stuff to keep track of), the vellum overlay and title/quotes pages.

One feature, that I absolutely appreciate is that you can order this planner in either a 12 month version or a 24 month version, which is only $5 extra.  We went with the 24 month option, since we have about a year and a half of planning to do.  The extra 12 months does make the planner a little chunkier, but that doesn’t bother me.

As you can see, after the intro part of the planner is the actual calendar part of the book. I have a lot of tabs since I have the 24 month version, the 12 month version would be a little less than this.

The calendars are laid out in a monthly view, so it’s not meant to be a life planner like my hourly or my vertical are; there are no weekly pages in here.  It doesn’t really need it.  If there are appointments, I can just write them in the monthly view and I doubt I would book myself out so much on one day that I can’t fit it all in the boxes.  There is also a lined note page after each month, so if I needed more space, I can use that.

Then there is the “I Do List” Section.  This has tons of work sheets and lists so that you can keep everything in one place.  There are pages to write out vows, start a guest list, seating arrangements, vendor contact lists, menu plans, flower arrangement checklist and a budget planner.  Along with it, there are also lists of tasks that you should be completing and the best time to do them during your engagement, which is a HUGE help.  There is so much in here that I never thought of doing or that I needed to do.

The planner also comes with 70 pages of notes pages, some lined, some blank, which has been great.  I’ve been using pages to write notes down about venues that we’re looking at, what we need to do to plan our honeymoon and other things.  I get the feeling I’ll be using most of these pages!

And because an Erin Condren Planner is not an Erin Condren Planner without stickers and a pocket folder, they have two pages of customized wedding stickers in the back and two pages of black stickers in front of their signature pocket folder, which will also be great for brochures and information that we will need.

This book has already become my best friend for the past few weeks that I’ve had it.  I even take it to work with me in case I decide to glance at a venue or see something that I should have in there.  I’m rarely without it.  I can also almost guarantee it will be quite stuffed by the time the wedding comes and it’ll probably also be the most used planner I’ve ever had. I’m actually curious to see how much wear will be on this by the time next summer happens.  I already use it more than all my other planners combined!

If you’re getting married, I highly suggest checking this planner out to keep you organized and (partially) sane during all the planning of your big day!  You can even get $10 off your planner by shopping through this link.

Happy planning!!