Wedding planning spreadsheet: what to track, free template

A spreadsheet is where most weddings start, and for good reason: it's free, you already know how to use it, and it bends to whatever your wedding needs. The trouble starts when it holds everything, because tabs that don't talk to each other drift apart. (Not sure what to plan first? Start with our guide to how to start planning a wedding.) This guide covers what to include in a wedding planning spreadsheet, how to lay out each tab so it stays useful, and a free template you can download now.

Download the free wedding planning spreadsheet (.xlsx)

It opens in Excel, Numbers and Google Sheets. No account and no email address needed.

What to include in a wedding spreadsheet

Six tabs cover almost every wedding. Fewer and something important lives in someone's head; more and nobody keeps them up to date.

1. Budget: your total and how it splits by category.
2. Payments: every deposit and instalment, paid or due.
3. Guests: one row per household, with RSVPs and dietary needs.
4. Vendors: everyone you're talking to, and who's booked.
5. Checklist: every task, with a due date and who it's with.
6. Day timeline: the wedding day hour by hour.

Keep one row per thing and one column per fact. A cell that says "Ada + Ellis, 2, veg?" is three facts in one place, and none of them can be counted.

The budget tab

Start with one cell for the target budget, then one row per category with the amount you plan to spend. Our template fills each category with a typical share of the total (about a fifth on the venue, a little more on food and drink), worked out by a formula, so typing your total fills the whole column. Type over any amount that doesn't fit your wedding.

The mistake most budget spreadsheets make is tracking only what's been paid. Track what you've agreed to pay as well, or a 3,200 florist with an 800 deposit looks like an 800 florist until the week of the wedding. Our guide to setting a wedding budget explains the two numbers and the buffer to keep aside.

The payments tab

One row per payment: the date, the vendor, the amount, whether it's paid, who paid it and what it was for. Sorting by date shows what's due next; filtering by vendor shows how much is still owed. Keep payments on their own tab rather than as extra columns on the budget, so a vendor with four instalments doesn't need four columns.

The guest list tab

One row per household or invitation, not per person: "Ada & Ellis Marchetti" with Total Invited 2. Then columns for the group (the bride's family, the groom's friends), a tier for how essential they are, whether the save the date and the invitation went out, the RSVP, how many are coming, children, dietary needs, and the address.

The tier column does the hard work when the list is too long; the guest list guide explains how to use it. In the template, Tier and RSVP Status are dropdowns, so every row uses the same words and the counts add up.

The vendor tracker tab

A wedding vendor tracker spreadsheet needs one row per vendor you're considering, not only the ones you've booked: category, name, contact person, phone, email, website, the price quoted, where you are with them (researching, quote received, booked) and notes. A tick column for the ones you've confirmed turns the tab into your booked list with one filter. Keep the contract price here and the payments on their own tab.

The checklist and day timeline

A checklist works best sorted by when each task is due, starting from the engagement. The template's Checklist tab has 111 tasks, grouped by category, with Done, Due Date, Assigned To and Priority columns; delete what your wedding doesn't need. If you'd rather have the dates worked out for you, the free wedding checklist dates every task back from your wedding day.

The Day timeline tab has a row per time and a column each for the groom, the bride, the wedding party and the vendors, so everyone's morning is on one page. To fill it in, start from the wedding day timeline guide, or from the sample afternoon wedding timeline for a 4 PM ceremony.

Excel or Google Sheets?

Either. The template is an Excel file (.xlsx), which every spreadsheet app opens:

• Excel: open it and start typing.
• Google Sheets: upload it to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets, or in Sheets choose File → Import → Upload. The dropdowns and formulas come with it. Sheets is the easiest way for the two of you to edit the same copy.
• Numbers: open it, and Numbers converts it to a Numbers spreadsheet.

When a spreadsheet stops working

Spreadsheets struggle with three things: two people editing at once without overwriting each other, figures that depend on another tab (the guest count feeding the caterer's numbers, a booked vendor's price feeding the budget), and the moment the guest list becomes a seating chart. When that happens you don't have to start again.

The free spreadsheet importer reads your workbook in your browser and shows what would come across before you sign up. Our template was built from the importer's own headings, so every tab maps straight across. Bought a template elsewhere, with a dashboard tab and merged cells? That's fine too; the importer page explains what comes across. On the free plan you get up to 75 guest households and 5 vendors and venues, with your budget, checklist and timeline; payments come across on Complete.

And if you ever want to leave, every part of your plan downloads as a spreadsheet again, on every plan.

Download the free template, or bring the spreadsheet you already have to the spreadsheet importer. When it's ready to move, create a free account; the pricing page shows what each plan includes.