The Knot Ultimate Wedding Planner & Organizer [binder edition]: Worksheets, Checklists, Etiquette, Calendars, and Answers to Frequently Asked Questions Hardcover – January 1, 2013

This planner is pretty much my Bible. Once we got engaged, I knew that we would be planning this wedding primarily on our own. We can't afford a planners services and I'm all about DIY - which is actually going really well for us with 8 months to go! This breaks everything down and gives insight into vendors and what you should be asking or looking for. While a good portion of sections don't apply to us, I still think this is a great thing to have if you're on a budget and not hiring a planner.I take it to work everyday and I love that it includes checklists and samples of budget breakdowns and all that fun stuff. I don't know about you, but I love making lists just so I can check things off but this makes me feel like I'm taking no prisoners! Anytime I come to a decision or hire a vendor or whatever, I open this up and check it off the timeline list. If I haven't made any progress in a couple weeks, I still look back at it to see where we are in terms of available time and final decisions.I ordered this like 2 weeks after we got engaged and when this showed up in the mail and I opened it; my fiancé literally shook his head and told me I was insane. Little does HE know that this thing has made planning a wedding (mostly on my own as he is extremely hands off and works swing shifts) as stress-free for me as it can get right now. I've added some sections and taken out sections that aren't applicable and I hole punch every vendor quote or email I get and place them in the correlating section. I've also made copies of the provided floor plans and made several layouts to determine which works best with our venue, and I've gleaned some pretty neat information from this. You can really use this binder to your advantage even if you aren't planning a big budget wedding, or you're having a more intimate wedding, or even if you're still using a wedding planner! You can tweak this to fit your needs and I honestly would not know what to do without this, this has helped keep me on track and even ahead of schedule.I will say this: planning a wedding can become all-consuming. For example, if you're like me and say : you and your honey decide to take a long weekend trip to the mountains in October and it's August, and then you obsess over planning EVERY.SINGLE.DETAIL until you actually leave - you're going to be exhausted. You're going to be so burnt out from planning what time you leave, what time you get back, triple checking your Airbnb reservations, making dinner plans for at least one night, what you're going to pack and "is the weather going to cold?" and all that crap, that you're not actually going to enjoy yourself. That's how I am; once a decision has been made to do something, I have to see the plans through to the very end to give myself peace of mind. I started off planning this wedding that way and realized that I wasn't doing myself any favors by constantly looking at this planner and following its timeline checklist. I eventually put the planner away for about a month and then went back to it with some clarity. Make sure you give yourself a break from planning every so often :)

Absolutely a wonderful substitute to getting an event planner. Even if you don't have any idea what you want for a wedding, the worksheets help a lot and you can go back and use them as a reference when you're searching for you vendors. The binder covers every topic and has good questions for vendors that you might not have otherwise thought about! Ex: for venues, the binder mentions bathroom count and that was honestly not something I thought of but it's definitely important! Very organized and gives good money saving tips as well !The binder itself is very sturdy. I have been turning the pages like crazy and have not ripped a single page yet. It also allows room for more pages to be added for when you're interested in more that one vendor for, for example photography, and you want to keep the Q&A page all in the binder.The only thing that I would change is the 3 rings not having that tab to assist in opening the rings.Overall wonderful and I have mentioned this binder and theknot.com to a few friends!

This thing is awesome and so customizable. So happy I picked this one! It had information and checklists that I hadn't even thought of myself, (pretty good reason why I needed it in the first place!) and it makes it really easy to use. Plus, I'm a very organized person who likes making checklists and notes, so having everything laid out for me while making it look good is just awesome to me. I plan on saving this as a scrapbook some day! It has a 3-ring binding so you can take out pages or insert your own (there's plenty of room to add pages), there's a brainstorming page and check sheet PLUS tips and ideas for every category of planning, inspiration pictures, places to put cutouts and pictures, tells you how to properly budget, etc. And it is so up-to-date! This book exceeded my expectations. One more thing I love, the covers are just giant stickers, and they made it so you can easily peel them right off if you want a plain, pretty blue binder!

This wedding planner was an absolute lifesaver! There is so much room to put down your plans, thoughts, ideas, etc I highly recommend getting this to plan your wedding! It is a great place to also put your memories and things you want to remember such as the cost of things, guests, gifts, locations, etc. Even bought one for our friend who is getting married soon! Great gift idea as well!