Trello

A Project Management Approach to Wedding Planning

My fiancé and I have used many project management systems for work. There’s so many great options to choose from and the companies that we have each worked with have used a variety of these tools. Between us we have experience with Asana, Basecamp, Harvest, Jira, Lighthouse, MantisBT, Pivotal Tracker, and Trello. This list is loosely defined as project management tools since MantisBT is really just used for bug tracking and Harvest is focused on time-tracking, producing invoices and getting paid. When it came time to start planning our wedding, we decided to go with Trello and we couldn’t be happier.

Trello is a simple, but powerful, system that lets you track each action and quickly see what stage each component of your project is in. Recent activity is displayed in an unobtrusive side-bar keeping you appraised of what’s going on without distracting you. Trello is a very customizable system meaning you don’t have to shoehorn your project into preset categories or states of completion. Each card can use a colored label which allows you to assign your own color-coding system. Boards, which are where the cards live, are used to indicate what state of completion the cards contained on that board are in.

Since our wedding is one big project with a great many components that will come together seamlessly over the course of a few hours this coming June, being able to take a global view of our progress is essential. Considering that Trello’s motto is “Your entire project, in a single glance”, it was a natural fit. We’ve labelled our boards based on what sorts of actions are needed, such as: “Deposit Needed” or “Choices”. Some cards contain checklists and some represent parts of the wedding that will undergo many different steps before they can be moved to the “Completed” board (wedding dress purchasing is a good example, apparently).

There’s something incredibly satisfying about seeing the “Completed” board grow as cards move through the various stages that each board represents. Trello allows great collaboration as the discussion under each card includes conversations we’ve each had with vendors and links to cool ideas. Both of us can be pretty intense when it comes to making plans and putting our noses to the grind-stone. Trello has been the perfect tool for us and we hope that others consider it for projects like this.

Cheers!