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Hello and welcome to your Seashell Wedding Co. Client Planning Portal!
Thank you for choosing us to be a part of your wedding planning venture.
Click the link to your chosen wedding package to begin!
If you like to read, there is a ton of info below to hopefully answer most questions you may have.
Take some time to familiarize yourself with this portal and the different sections and resources. My goal in making this portal is to give you the tools to do the majority of your wedding planning on your own to keep your hourly planning costs down. The more you use these resources, the less you’ll need me and the more you will save in your budget!But of course, if you do need help, I am always just an email or phone call away. You can schedule a call at the bottom of this page!
WHAT IT IS:
The Planning Portal is a customized website for each couple with (hopefully) everything you will need for your wedding planning. There is a LOT in there, and I am always adding more and making updates. You may see those pop-up from time to time but I will email you with any major changes.THE PASSWORDS:
Your portal password is “******” and any password protected pages are “********” The Passwords are there because I don’t want the portal or the resources within it to be crawled by google or other search engines. And also, most of these resources are only given to booked clients – it is part of what you are paying for by hiring Seashell! That said, if you need help from family or friends with your planning you can feel free to share the password with them. However, please do not share your portal with your other vendors – especially if they are local to Destin – because the resources in the portal are proprietary.QUESTIONS NOT ANSWERED IN THE FAQ:
Feel free to email or call me at any time during your planning process as questions arise. Also, if there is a question that you think may be a good addition to the FAQ, let me know that too! I want those to be a resource for you and all of the clients after you.UPDATE FREQUENCY:
Some sections are more often updated than others. The vendor list, for example, gets changes and additions almost weekly. Sadly, so many vendors are continuing to go out of business or move due to Covid. So, while it is a complete list of all of the vendors I recommend, stay tuned for additions and subtractions.THE BEST ORDER OF APPROACH:
Every wedding is different, but I always recommend starting with the Planning Checklist. That will get you up to speed with what you need to be working on and the most important priorities.From there, begin using the Budget Tracker and Guest RSVP tracker. For super small events (under 25 guests) you do not need to use either of those things but if you have a tight budget and/or a lot of guests to keep track of, I would recommend getting going with those from the beginning as well. For weddings over 25 guests, we do require at least the names, rsvp status and table assignments for all guests.After you have started on those documents, skim through all of your resources so that you know what there is and where to find it when questions arise. The guide to hiring vendors and the vendor recommendation lists are great to read through even if you aren’t planning to use those things right away. It is so helpful just to get ideas of what is possible!WHEN TO REACH OUT TO YOUR PLANNER:
First, during the majority of your planning, you do not need to reach out to us at all if you don’t need help! The only mandatory meeting before your wedding is your 6 week check-in call. However, I find that my couples who have the best wedding planning experience do check-in periodically with updates or questions and to have us look over contracts for any high-cost items (like catering, photography, rentals etc.). I would much rather have you email or call me before you pay a big deposit to a vendor so we can review it than have to try to change your contract after the fact if something wasn’t quite right. Also, if you are booking someone not on the vendor recommendation list, please contact me before finalizing. There are always new vendors popping up, so there’s nothing wrong with booking off-list, but on the off chance the vendor you’re hiring is off list for a reason, I definitely want to share that!We also love to be CC’d on emails with your vendors. Please CC Sadie@SeashellWeddingCo.com (or BCC if you’d prefer) on any emails that you think it would be helpful for me to read or have. Unless asked, I won’t respond to those, but I will read them all and if I notice any glaring issues or things that you should address, I will let you know!MANDATORY DOCUMENTS IN THE PORTAL:
Everything in the “Collaborative Planning Documents” section (other than your planning checklist and budget tracker are mandatory documents if you have booked on-site coordination from Seashell. Those documents, questionnaires and forms are essential for my team to be able to execute your wedding how you want it! Sometimes we coordinate weddings that are unique or small enough to not need all of those details communicated (for example, the WWYD document is not necessary for an elopement) so if that is the case for your wedding, please open the document and write at the top “N/A” or make a comment on the google document that it does not apply to your wedding. Do not leave anything completely blank!THE 6-WEEK CHECK-IN CALL:
This call would be better named the “anytime between 6-8 weeks out from your wedding call” but that was too long. It is a very long call (or series of calls if that works better for scheduling) where we go over literally every detail for your wedding. We will go through your “ALL the details” document section by section, create your draft timeline, update the line items in your proposal to reflect the exact needs of your wedding (like adjusting your staffing, coordination hours etc. to what is needed), talk through your inspo folder and finalize your design and floral order, and discuss and assign any items left to be completed.That call must be scheduled (BY YOU!) on my appointment scheduler anytime between 6-8 weeks before your wedding. Before we talk though, you must complete all of the mandatory documents and forms. Please try to have everything complete at least 48 hours before our call! If there are things you don’t know or are waiting to find out or would like advice on, write that in the documents. Please don’t just leave things blank if you can help it!TIMELINE GENIUS:
Timeline Genius is a really great program used by wedding and event planners to create timelines. It allows us to collaborate on your timeline together and you will be able to make edits and comments as we finalize everything. A Timeline Genius timeline is an included part of your planning package and something we create even for the smallest and simplest weddings.A thorough timeline not only helps everyone, staff, vendors, and the wedding party to be on the same page for the wedding, it also is essential in case of an emergency where your lead coordinator was unable to be at the wedding. I like to make my timelines detailed enough that any professional coordinator, even if they were not familiar with you or your wedding, could come in and successfully execute your wedding with very little notice. (That is also why you should focus on filling out all of your portal documents thoroughly – those documents tell the entire story of your wedding planning all in one place!)Your link to collaborate on your timeline will become active in the portal usually a day or two before your scheduled 6-week check-in call. You will also receive an email invitation from Timeline Genius inviting you to collaborate when a basic draft is ready.Here’s an example of a full complete timeline if you want to get an idea of what yours will look like when complete!BASIC PLANNING TIMELINE:
Familiarize yourself with what is in the portal, the documents you have to fill out, and the ones that are optional.Use the resources in your portal to plan as much of your wedding as possible.Hire your vendors and remember to consult your planner when booking big-ticket vendors or vendors that are not on our rec list.Upload vendor contracts to your Contracts Folder as you hire.Add photos to your Inspo folder (with descriptions of what you like about them!) before your 6-week check-in call.Fill out all of the documents in the collaboration section as thoroughly as possible before your call with your planner. And if you already know the answers to some sections, you can start filling them out much earlier. My advice is to do your wedding planning whenever you get a burst of motivation. No reason to wait until the last minute!Schedule and have your 6-week check-in call with your planner (schedule this 6-8 weeks before your wedding. No later than 6 weeks before! You will get a reminder email from your planner if you haven’t scheduled it.)Purchase your wedding liability insurance (see the blog post below for help).Read and fill out the WWYD and unforeseen expenses documents below at least 7 days before your wedding.Pay your “security deposit” that goes along with your unforeseen expenses document.Review the gratuity guide (below) and make envelopes to give to your coordinator for any vendor gratuities you would like her to hand out.Rehearsal, walkthrough, and/or decor and drink drop off at your venue. Usually the day before the wedding.WEDDING DAY!Leave reviews for any vendors who you loved working with! Because Destin attracts many destination clients, positive reviews are so important to our businesses!PLANNING RESOURCES
YOU DO NOT NEED TO USE ANY OF THESE RESOURCES. FEEL FREE TO CONSULT THIS SECTION AS MUCH OR AS LITTLE AS YOU’D LIKE!
If there is a password to enter, the password is “*******” for everything!COLLABORATIVE PLANNING DOCUMENTS
THESE ARE YOUR PERSONAL DOCUMENTS, SPREADSHEETS, AND QUESTIONNAIRES THAT YOU WILL KEEP UPDATED AND COLLABORATE ON WITH YOUR PLANNER AND COORDINATION TEAM.
Tips and timeline for this section:All of these documents are hosted in google drive (except for your timeline). You do not need a google account to work on these but it will be helpful so that you can track of who is making changes.If you have booked on-site coordination with Seashell, filling out and/or using all of these documents is a contractual requirement for working with us. The only exceptions are the planning checklist and budget tracker which are both helpful for staying on track but not required.If your wedding is at least 6 months away, we recommend starting your planning with the Guest Tracker, Planning Checklist and Budget Tracker and working from there. If your wedding is less than 6 months away, check-in with your planner on the best to-do list order.Before your 6-week check-in call, you should have the following documents completely filled out.ALL the Details – if there are things you do not know yet, write that in! Do not leave entire sections blank.Inspo Folder – not a document but you should have photos of florals and decor that you would like for your wedding in this folder. You can title the photos with what you like about them, or you can create a document with the photos pasted in and a description of what you like about them and put that document in this folder.Contract Folder – all contracts for every vendor you’ve booked should be in that folder. If a vendor does not have a contract, please include a pdf or screenshot of what you have agreed to and add it to this folder.Decor Instructions – this will be a moving target that we will continue to add to up until your wedding. But take a stab at filling it out to the best of your ability before your call.Guest tracker – this document is really robust and you do not need to use everything in it. You do need to have at least the names and RSVP status for every guest in there before your planning call.Timeline – we use Timeline Genius to collaborate on a final event timeline together. The timeline link in your portal will not be active until right around your 6 week check-in call. When it is active for you to review and make additions, you will also receive a link in your email.What Would You Do and Unforeseen Wedding Day Expenses need to be completed at least one week before your wedding.
PAST EVENTS FOR IDEAS AND INSPIRATION!
Want more? We have done over 1000 weddings and I have a backlog of photos that need to be added here! If you want to see examples of more weddings, head over to our instagram! The best places to look for lots of content are the photos tagged of us and our highlight reels.
NEED SOME HELP? SCHEDULE A CALL WITH YOUR PLANNER!