Wedding Day Timelines Are a Team Effort
As a professional planner, you’re well-aware that creating and executing a thorough wedding day timeline is never just a one-person job. Weddings are complex events that involve multiple parties – from venues and vendors, to the wedding party and event guests. You know that before you can finalize your wedding day timelines, you need to incorporate input from all of these parties. Getting feedback from relevant people helps you ensure that everybody is on the same page, so the big day goes off without a hitch.
But you may be thinking… collaborating on wedding day timelines is easier said than done. Having interviewed hundreds of experienced wedding planners over the last six years, I know this to be true. So I ask you to consider two important questions: First, what makes collaborating on wedding day timelines so challenging, even for seasoned planners? And second, is there a way to do it better, faster, and more easily? (Hint: Keep reading, and you’ll find there is.)
Why Collaborating on Wedding Day Timelines Is Challenging
If you’re like many of the planners I’ve interviewed, you may use Word documents or Excel spreadsheets to collaborate on your wedding day timelines. In other words, you attach your wedding day timeline to an email and send it off to all the relevant parties to get their input. In theory, this sounds pretty simple. But in practice, it can quickly become a headache that takes up more time than it should. It can mean lengthy back-and-forth email exchanges and constantly following up to get the responses you need. And once you have everybody’s feedback, you might spend hours incorporating the edits into your master timeline. If you’re planning multiple weddings at once, it can be overwhelming and frustrating to just keep track of it all.
Any of this sound familiar? If so, you’re not alone. That’s why many of the wedding planners I’ve interviewed switched to Google Docs as a means to collaborate with clients, vendors, and venues. However, even Google Docs doesn’t give you the level of control that you need (and deserve!) as the wedding planner and timeline creator. Google Docs only lets you choose whether or not someone can edit or view the document as a whole, which presents a few problems. As a professional wedding planner, you know how all of the complex pieces of a wedding day timeline fit together. And you know that changing the timing of a single item may have a ripple effect that impacts the flow of the entire document. Planners have often said to me, “My clients would honestly do more harm than good if they started editing my timeline…because they don’t really know how everything fits together.”
So, to dodge hours of rework, you avoid giving collaborators free reign to tinker with your timeline and just provide them with rights to view the document. This approach, however, poses another problem. Sometimes it would actually be helpful for you to grant other parties editing rights on your wedding day timeline. For instance, allowing the bride or groom to edit the contact details for the wedding party not only makes sense, it saves you time. But is there a way to allow the bride or groom to edit one part of the timeline and just view the rest? With Google Docs, sadly, the answer is “no.”
This raises another issue: You may be reluctant to share the entire wedding day timeline with all involved parties. Why? Perhaps some timeline items are meant to be a surprise for the bride or groom. Maybe some items are simply not relevant to everyone, or involve behind-the-scenes activities that are still being finalized. In any of these cases, sharing the full wedding day timeline may be more trouble than it’s worth. And with Word Documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Google Docs, you don’t have a choice in the matter – it’s all or nothing.
At this point, you must be thinking, “There has to be a better way!” I’m very happy to report, dear timeline creator, that now there is.
Wedding Day Timeline Collaboration Made Easier
Enter: Timeline Genius. Our software allows you to easily manage collaborators’ access rights to your timeline on an individual-by-individual basis, as well as on an item-by-item basis. This means full control over your carefully crafted wedding day timeline! Say farewell to those internal battles around granting editing rights, because now you can select which person can edit which specific item. You even have the power to hide items from view when sharing the timeline with certain individuals.
Using Timeline Genius for collaboration means no more searching back through countless email chains to monitor feedback from vendors, venues, and clients. Now, you can have all of their comments consolidated and saved in one, central location. Comments are recorded in real-time – our system will even notify you when new comments or changes have been made, so you don’t have to remember to check. How cool is that?! Wondering how this could get any better? Well, Timeline Genius also lets you to store all of the documents and files related to your wedding in one place. It’s basically like having a Dropbox folder dedicated to each wedding day timeline. Using our software, you can store key files (think: floor plans, vendor contracts, design images, etc.) and share them with your collaborators to download as desired.
Not only will using Timeline Genius save you time (and help you avoid lots of headaches), it will also help you impress your collaborators in the process. By providing real-time, mobile-friendly timeline access to your collaborators, you can set yourself apart and take your professionalism to the next level. Consider today’s millennial clientele. Imagine sending them a polished email featuring your logo that includes a link to a branded, real-time, mobile-friendly version of their wedding day timeline. The old Word Document approach doesn’t stand a chance in comparison. So don’t miss this opportunity to delight and impress your vendors and clients. You won’t regret it!
How to Collaborate on Timeline Genius
Now, let’s get down to brass tacks. If you’re signed in on Timeline Genius, how do you actually use the collaboration features? First, you click on the “Collaborate” tab for a particular wedding day timeline. From here, you can invite collaborators to work with you on your timeline by sending them an email invitation through our system that contains a customized link to the wedding day timeline. And don’t worry, your collaborators will see your company’s logo at all of these touch points – we keep Timeline Genius branding out of the picture so you can really shine.
To manage what each collaborator sees when they click on their timeline link, simply adjust the access rights for each timeline item as desired to be hidden, viewable, or editable. To save time, you can also use our bulk-editing feature to adjust access rights for multiple timeline items at once. Then, all that’s left is to let your collaborators go in and do their thing! Even though they’ll be using the software, keep in mind that your vendors, venues, and clients are not required to sign up with Timeline Genius in order to collaborate. The process is 100% smooth, painless, and FREE for them! Take a few minutes to watch the video below, and you’ll see what we mean.
Are you sold on hassle-free timeline collaboration yet? Want to make working with others on wedding day timelines easier than ever? We don’t blame you – jump in and try Timeline Genius for yourself: [Click Here to Start Your Free Trial of Timeline Genius]
With Timeline Genius, you have a real-time, centralized way to collaborate on wedding day timelines with all of the players involved in making the big day a success. Not only will it save you time and make wedding day timeline creation easier, it will also impress your clients and vendors in the process. Honestly, what’s not to love?
