StephMyLife Wedding Budget & Planner

Introducing the ultimate wedding planning and budgeting tool! The StephMyLife Wedding Budget & Planner will help you to keep track of your entire wedding planning process from start to finish, and stay organised and on track. Manage your budget, your guest list, and even your table plan in one place with this 2-in-1 budget & planner.

How do I buy the wedding plan as a gift?

We don’t have a gift option, but you can instead enter your friends email in at checkout and send the plan to them instead.

• Select the wedding plan or bundle and click ‘add to cart’.
• When you enter in the details on the checkout page, pop your friends email in the order form. They will be sent the confirmation email instead.
• You cannot pay by PayPal if you want the email to go to someone else, as the plan gets sent to your PayPal account automatically. You can pay by Apple Pay or card instead to buy the plan as a gift.

One thing to note is that you won’t be sent the wedding plan after you buy it. You will just be sent an email with a link to download the plan, so you can forward this email to a friend if you would like them to have it. If you want to pay by PayPal, this would be your best option.

What applications can I use with the Wedding Plan?

All of the Wedding Planner features can be used with both Excel and Google Sheets, but not Apple’s ‘Numbers’ application. While you can still use the plan with Numbers, some of the functionality – like populating the seating plan – will be lost.

I recommend using Google Sheets, which is a free, online spreadsheet program that allows you to share your wedding planner easily with others and access it from your phone, iPad or computer.  When you share the plan with someone, you can see each others updates to the sheet instantly. This means you don’t need to email it back and forth with updates, and you can always have the latest version.

Because the program is online, if you lose your phone, upgrade your laptop, or break your iPad, you will still have access to the sheet on any new device. Just go to Google Sheets, log in with your Google account, and your spreadsheet will be there, with all of your edits!

How do I Install the StephMyLife Wedding Plan?

Once you purchase the wedding plan, an email will be automatically sent to you with a download link for your plan. If you don’t immediately see this in your inbox, check your junk or spam folder to see if it was filtered in here. Search for ‘shop@stephmylifetravel.com‘ to find the email.

Your confirmation email contains a download link for the plan. Before you click this link, decide if you want to download the plan onto your phone or your computer.

If you want to download the plan onto your phone, install the Google Sheets app first as you will need this to load up the plan. Here is a link to the Android app and here is one to the Apple Version. Click the link in the email to download the plan, and then when you’re prompted, open the file in the Google Sheets app. The file will now be ready to use in the app, and if you log into Google sheets on your computer you can see the wedding plan here. If you clicked the link on your phone and can’t find the download later, here is how to find your downloaded files on Android and iPhone.

If you want to download it on your computer, you can just click the link and the file will go into your downloads folder. You can either open it up in Excel, or else load it into Google Sheets. Here is how you do that (it only takes a minute).

How do I use the StephMyLife Wedding Plan?

Before you get started with the planner, here is an important piece of information to remember about the sheet: White cells are for you to enter details, Grey cells contain calculations.  So you should only enter information in the white cells, or you will overwrite calculations and this will skew the numbers.

• When you first open the sheet, you will see the ‘Summary‘ sheet. To start, enter your names and your wedding date if it’s decided. The Bride / Groom cells are changeable, so if you are an LGBT couple you can change these and the bride & groom references throughout the sheet will change.
• The main table on the summary sheet contains calculations, so don’t enter in anything here. As you start to fill out the planner, this table will populate and you can see your total budget and expenditure.
• Below the summary table is a chart, that will be blank to start. As the table above starts to fill with numbers, this chart will update to show the breakdown of costs for the wedding.
• Below the chart, enter in any savings that you have and any contributions you will be getting towards the wedding in the left table. This will be used to calculate how much you need to save to pay for the wedding you have budgeted for. As the rest of the tables are filled out it will calculate how much money you need, then it will take away how much you have already to show how much you need to save. It will divide this by the number of months you have until the wedding so that you have a monthly savings amount. You can use my StephMyLife Savings Plan if you need help saving (there is a bundle available too get this cheaper when you buy the wedding plan).
•  Next, you have 5 budgeting tabs: Events, Clothing, Beauty, Suppliers, and Honeymoon. Make your way through these tabs, filling out what you would like to spend on each item in these categories. There are pre-filled items in there to help you, but you can change or remove this and add new ones too by adding a new row. If you’re not sure which budget a particular item should go in, add them to the ‘other’ section in the Supplier Budget tab.
• As you fill out the budgeting tabs, you will see that the Summary sheet will start populating and you can see your budget start to take shape. The chart will update too, for an overall look at where your budgeted money is going.  You can also see how much you will need to save per month and decide if this is achievable.
• When the time comes to paying deposits and making bookings, you can fill out what you are spending in each category in the ‘actual’ column on each budget tab. The sheet will calculate if you are over or under budget in that item, and also let you know if you’re under or over budget overall. You can track deposits, and check when balances are due here too.
• The next tab is the Guestlist, where can keep track of who is coming to your wedding. You can fill out the contact details for the invites and save the dates, keep track of RSVP’s, and of what each guests food preferences and dietary requirements are – along with lots of other details. This details can be shared with your wedding planner and caterer closer to the wedding. There is also a section for keeping track of gifts and thank you cards.
• The next two tabs are the Seating Plans. One of these is for a reception with round tables, and the other is for a reception with long tables. You can delete the one that you don’t want. When you fill out the guestlist, the ‘guest’ columns in the seating charts will be populated with the guests names. You can then choose where people will sit. You can move the tables around to match the configuration in your room.
• The final tab is a To Do List that you can share with your fiancé. You can fill out tasks and  assign them to each other – and mark them as done when completed. This sheet can be used to keep track of what you both have outstanding, and means you don’t forget important things.
• As you go through the planning stages of the wedding, you can keep adjusting your budget, entering your actual amounts, and using the sheet to plan for your wedding. The sheet will adjust your savings per month as you go under and over budget, so keep an eye on this figure to make sure you’re saving enough!

How do I share the StephMyLife Wedding Plan with my Fiance?

If you are using Excel, you will have to email the sheet back and forth to your partner or planner.

If you are using Google Sheets, then you can share the plan online with your fiance or someone else. This means you can both update the sheet on your own devices and instantly see each others updates. This is extremely helpful, because not only can you share the sheet with each other, you can also access it across all of your devices. You can update the sheet on your laptop when you’re at home, and also add things to the budget or task list on your phone when you’re on the go.

To share the plan, first open the Wedding Planner on Google Sheets on your phone or computer.

• On your computer, click the green button on the top right corner of the screen that says ‘share’. Enter the email address you want to share it with, and choose the type of access you would like to give the person. Your partner will have edit access, but your planner may only have read-only access. Send the invitation and the person will get an email with a link to the sheet. Now you can both update the sheet on your mobiles and computers and see each others updates.
• To share on your phone, open the wedding plan and click the icon of a person with a plus sign next to it. Enter in the email address and choose the type of access just like the above way, and send the invitation.

You can share the sheet across as many devices and with as many people as you like. Just be sure to only give editing access to those who you want to edit the sheet and know how to use it. Otherwise they may accidentally delete an important calculation.

Is the planner set up for LGBT couples?

Of course! When you start using the planner, you can choose to set the sheet up for a bride / groom, bride / bride, or groom groom. The seating plans and all other sheets will be updated for you.

Why does my link say it has expired?

Each link comes with a limited number of downloads, so you may have clicked this link and downloaded the plan already too many times. If you clicked the link on your laptop, check your ‘downloads’ folder to find the file. If you clicked it on your phone or iPad, here is how to find your downloaded files on Android and iPhone.

If you can’t find the download anywhere, reply to your confirmation email letting us know and we can help you get access to your Wedding Plan!

Where is my confirmation email?

A confirmation email containing your download link is sent out automatically after each purchase. If you pay by PayPal, it will be sent to your PayPal email, otherwise it will be sent to the email you enter at checkout.

If the email is not in your inbox, check your junk or spam email as sometimes mail gets filtered in here. Search for ‘shop@stephmylifetravel.com’ to find the email.  If you cannot find the email anywhere, send me an email at ‘steph@stephmylifetravel.com‘ and I’ll fix that for you.