Transcript:
Don’t mind all my gray hair. I haven’t been dyeing it so. Yeah, hello, Youtube. Welcome or welcome back to my channel. My name is Tina and I make videos every single week on DIY lifestyle and right now. I’m focusing on my wedding series, and I feel like a broken record because I’ve said that so many times now, but in case you’re new here, that’s what I’m all about And for today’s video. I wanted to talk about my five top favourite free resources for planning your wedding. A few of you guys have been. Dming me and asking me specific questions about my wedding things that I did to plan it, and I thought that putting my top favorites in a video would be super helpful to a lot of you guys. So that is what we’re doing today. I’m not gonna be mentioning some more basic sites like Pinterest because obviously Pinterest is such an awesome resource but outside of Pinterest. I wanted to talk about some of my favorite things that I use to plan and I chose resources. That are a little bit more basic. So then a lot of you guys can use it and obviously. I picked ones that I use for free because I did not want to pay for any services that we’re like online and not tangible. So I’m gonna dive right into it and talk about the platform that I used for my website, and that was actually Zola, autumn wedding writer, the not and Zola, I just like their designs, the best and the design that I picked was called violin. It just had this beautiful calligraphy. It was nice and classic, and it didn’t look too templatized, which is what? I was kind of avoiding. There are other websites that you can obviously pay for or you can also pay for a domain so instead of having. Zola, calm slash Tina and Brian wedding. It could be Tina and Brian wedding calm, but I didn’t really care about that. So obviously I just used all the free applications on Zola. So definitely the top thing that I liked from. Zola was their website design. I absolutely loved how my wedding website came out. It was also really easy to use the. Ui was very intuitive and it was just easy to navigate easy to change things and put things where I wanted them to be. It just had a nice clean look, and that’s exactly what I was going for. So that was the number one thing and just to keep in mind. The capabilities and Zola are also similar to things like wedding wire and the not. It is just based on your preference of what you value, but for me. The wedding website aesthetic was like my number one concern. Because I’m just a sucker. Four things that are really pretty so obviously having a beautiful website was important to me. I also used it for my gift registry. That’s what Sola is mainly used for is for their wedding registry. They have a great app for that, and it really pulls in all different types of websites. So then you could put in exactly what you want on your registry. So that was really helpful, especially for my bridal shower and also getting cash, gifts or honeymoon funds. You can also do that on that, so I really liked using their platform for that. And, Lastly, it was really easy to just import your guest list and have everyone. RSVP on there. I was really grateful for this because I had four different like meal options, and it just made it easy for me to put all the choices on there. Get people’s guest names. People can check in, and it was also nice because you can ask your guests for music suggestions or any little questions that you have dietary restrictions all that good stuff. So Zola is definitely a good place to go not only for registry, but also for the website, so even though Zola was my preferred platform for my wedding website, I really enjoyed using the knot and wedding wire to look at vendor recommendations and reviews That is where I want to go connect with different vendors. I actually found my photographer on there and I really liked how intuitive the platform is because you’re able to go in, put in the zip code of your venue or your local area. Put in your budget. It just has some great filters in there so you can find exactly who you’re looking for for a good price so instead of having to go to so many different vendor websites, it’s all listed there for you, and then when you’re actually interested in a vendor, you can go ahead and click on their profile. See what they’re all about go to their website. If it really piques your interest and get in touch with them. Also, if anyone’s looking for a great wedding chart planner, wedding wire has a great one on there. I don’t have these all linked down below. So for my third resource, it’s going to be the most basic and most unshockable. And that is Google. Google really has their ish together and just is a great resource to use number one. If you haven’t already please make a wedding email, it will just make your life so much easier. That is basically where I would have all my communications with vendor. I would sign up for email newsletters to save some coin. Whenever there was like a sale, having an email for you and your partner to check jointly, it’s just so much easier and at the time, might you might email and at the time? I had the word wedding in my email address, but if I were to go back, I would just make it straight up like our two last names or whatever the new last name will be because we still use that email today, but it still says wedding in it, so it’s kind of awkward, so I wish that we just didn’t put the word wedding. So that’s a tip for you guys. If you’re gonna make a wedding email, just make it your new joint email together, so you can have all of your new accounts in that email. It’s not only great for our organization, but it’s just a great way for you to save money because they’re always gonna get the latest sales and stuff in that inbox without having to clutter your normal inbox. Another great tool from Google is using their forms that honestly was a lifesaver, especially for capturing everyone’s addresses. I don’t know why, but my friends are getting married. Are still just like texting people or Facebook messaging people for their addresses, but honestly just save yourself the headache and make a basic Google form, asking people for their email address their mailing address all of that information, so you have it all in one place instead of having to like text everyone one by one and then like in putting yourself like it’s just gonna take too long, so make sure that you do that, and if you know that people are gonna be moving around in the middle of your wedding, make sure you reach out to them and ask for their new mailing addresses because there’s definitely a few males that did not make it to the new address. So yeah, just a quick tip, and then the third most helpful tool from. Google was just using their sheets, that’s. Honestly, how my husband and I tracked all of our budgeting. What are you yelling well? I hope no one heard it. And the third most helpful app from Google is definitely using their Google sheets. That is honestly what my husband and I use for our budgeting. There are a lot of apps out there that you can use for budgeting for your wedding, but for some reason by husband. I just really liked using Google Sheets. It’s just what we know and love using best, so just using some simple formulas setting aside a budget and making sure that we were staying under that budget was really helpful to see in Google Sheets and only for budgeting. But that’s actually what I use to make my timelines, and I can actually link down my actual timeline in the description down below, but was this a good way to kind of create a calendar, especially for our wedding party to have an overview of all the things that they were committing to, so there are definitely a lot of ways to use Google sheets, but those are just two examples and my fourth resource has to be money-saving resources. So places like Rakuten and honey really saved us a lot of money, so in conjunction with getting a new credit card to really rack up all the points and all the mileage, which could be a whole video in itself using Rakuten is honestly a great way to save some money on top of the money that you’re getting back for cash back on your credit cards. This is not a sponsored video by the way, But Rakatan is basically the new version of Ebates. So if you sign up for the first time, you get like $10 off and then you can download their extension and just see all the cash back rewards that they have usually it’s like 4% back, but on certain days, things can jump up to like 8 or even 12 percent cash back, and that really does just add up over time, so I would definitely recommend downloading that extension as well as honey, because obviously, honey, just like gives you all the coupon codes for free and the extension just automatically populates with the best coupon, and I’m sure the budget Brides already know all about this. But like if you don’t already just do yourself a favor and download those two extensions. I still use both of those extensions today, and it just really helps me save some money and it makes life a lot easier and the fifth free resource. I want to talk about is Facebook. I feel like I talked about this in like every other video, but honestly, I just love Facebook marketplace so much because you can find so many good things on there. So many brides are selling their use decor, and that is actually how. I got some of my decor so things for my centerpieces. I got on there for a lot price, so I bought, like a hundred sixty votos for like $60 which is really awesome because they almost look brand-new and it’s just an awesome way to like, save some money there, but also just keep upcycling items, so Facebook marketplace is really awesome, But also Facebook groups are a great resource because you can find things locally and have real recommendations from people. I think it’s a great way to crowdsource things, especially when you’re looking for local vendors like a seamstress or a photographer, you can also crowdsource things like your wedding hashtag. I’ve definitely have seen people go on there and put their last name with their future spouse’s last name and like all, the comments below are really creative ways to kind of, like play on the words. So if you’re ever feeling stuck when you’re wedding planning, definitely go to a Facebook group like so many people are there to the help and support and it’s just a great community to be a part of. I’m no longer a bride, but I’m still on there because, but I’m still on those things just in case anyone like asked a question and I’m able to answer it, and I’m also selling things on those groups, so definitely check out Facebook groups and the best way to find a Facebook group is by putting in your local area, So I searched up Chicagoland wedding and I joined like maybe three different groups, and it’s just awesome, being part of a community of Brides that know exactly what you’re going through and just like, get advice from them, and you can give advice to other people so would highly recommend if you haven’t already joined one join a Facebook group and those were my five favorite online resources for weddings again. I just want to say. Thank you, guys all so much for your support and for watching this channel. It really means so much to me when I get nice comments. It makes me happy that can help someone out there, especially in this crazy time. We’re almost at 3,000 so that is really awesome. I can’t believe how fast that we are growing. Thank you guys so so much. It just makes me so so happy and I love filming these videos. So if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments down below, and I would love to make a video on whatever your suggestion is, don’t. Forget to follow me on Instagram. I’m posting every single day on there and that’s it for today’s video. I’ll see you guys in the next one. Bye [Music]!