Las Vegas Living

How to Make a Bride Planner

Going to share a way to make a budget-wise bride wedding planner with a fun garter to band the book out of a rather inexpensive memory book for photos. While some call it a Wedding Planner, Wedding Organizer, the point is to keep track of the wedding plans.

A lot of organization and planning goes into pulling off the perfect wedding. To ease the bride-to-be stress level of a family member I decided to make her a bride planner. Also made her a   Bride Bag Messenger Bag to carry the wedding planner around with ease.

Anyone who has been a bride knows that you end up making yourself nearly insane with all the details to keep track of. The vexation of finding what 'might' be perfect but of course the fabric swatch to match the color is, as you guessed, at home!

Planning a holiday dinner for 30 is challenging enough for most people but increasing the guest list to 150 or more becomes taxing in the details.

Keeping samples, swatches, and everything involved in the bride wedding planner helps the keep all the plans and sanity, intact.

Here's How to do a Bride Planner

I started with a memory photo album book that had an expandable spine with top loading sheet protectors on the pages. These kind of photo album books you can screw in an extra post to make the book thicker.

Remove the screws from the posts with a screwdriver or a penny. I separated the front and back.

The plan was to add pocket folders, with dividers separating the wedding planner as well as more sheet protector pages.

Since this particular bride has a thing for Disney princess themes, we went with pocket folders of that type.

The top loading sheet protectors are good to put the pictures from magazines that inspired how she wants the reception decorated or just what the bride wants for the reception table centerpieces, for example.

By collecting the images to show the florist or hairdresser, there is also less chance of miscommunications and more of a chance of the bride getting just what she wants. Much easier than trying to thumb through various bookmarks in magazines while getting confused and frustrated.

Each divided tab would have pocket folders added to hold contracts and various vendors paperwork as well as to hold a notepad for each section.

To reinforce the pocket folders, I tied 1/4 inch wide white ribbon along the center of the folder and around the flap of the binder.

Then I made sure the ribbon would be held by the posts when putting front to back again.

The sheet protector pages were layered back on the posts between the dividers and pocket folders.

By adding dividers to the bride wedding planner with tabs she could write on, the different areas of the wedding could be focused on as she wished her wedding planner organized.

Bride Planner Divider Tabs Ideas

• Guest List and Invitations
• Parties and Rehearsals
• Bridal Party Attire
• Flowers
• Ceremony
• Reception
• Honeymoon

Tighten the screws back into the posts and begin the garter.

The Garter Book Binder

I had a long scrap of white fabric. The measurement around the wedding planner was 26 inches so the fabric needed to double that length.

The fabric was cut on a cutting mat with a rotary blade to measure 52 inches and 5 inches wide. (26x2=52 inches) If your album is larger you will need to add to length.

Then press down 1/4 inch along the length of each side.

Fold the wrong sides together and pin.

Topstitch close to the edge and make sure to leave the ends open.

Topstitch another seam 1 1/4 inches from the edge stitching. This will make a channel to insert the 1 inch wide elastic. If you opt to use more narrow elastic, you will need to adjust the width of your channel.

Attach a safety pin to the end of the elastic and feed into the channel to gather the garter. The safety pin makes it easier to push the elastic through.

Continue feeding the elastic in and tightening to gather the garter. Adjust to fit the wedding planner snugly and pin overlapping the ends of the elastic.

Fold the raw ends inside the garter and stitch the overlapped elastic ends, then repeat stitching to reinforce.

To cover the area where the garter is joined and stitched, a bow was added.

To make the bow, take another scrap of fabric and cut to 12x5 inches. Fold in all edges to hem and topstitch as done on garter.

Put the needle through the fabric near the hem side and layer a fold onto the needle about an inch apart. Do the full circle and use a few stitches through the layers to hold them together.

Attach to garter with a ribbon in the center of the bow with several stitches with a needle by hand.