.png)
You’ve finalized your guest list, booked a venue, and now have a wedding date! Amazing. Now it’s time to start working on sending your Save the Dates out. But wait a minute, you probably don’t know all of your guests’ addresses off the top of your head.
Welcome to one of the more tedious and not-so-exciting tasks of wedding planning. We know these tasks suck, but they have to be done! Collecting your guest list addresses will take some time, and (just like with RSVP responses later on in the process) you’ll likely be waiting on some people to get back to you before you have all the info you need.
But fear not! We have some quick tips and tricks to make gathering your guests’ addresses an easy breezy process.
The Old Fashioned Way
There is of course the obvious way of doing things – calling, texting, or emailing guests & having them send you their mailing addresses. While you can certainly copy and paste your message going out to guests, this is still a time-consuming process. Plus, you’ll have to do the work of copying their addresses from their message back to you over to wherever you are tracking your guest list.
That being said, this is a more personal approach to collecting addresses if you prefer that! Or, if you have a shorter guest list, this might not be as daunting of a task. If you end up going this route, I recommend getting as many addresses as you can from your immediate family (if your mom is anything like mine, she has extensive data saved in her address book on your extended family). This will help cut down the number of guests you’ll have to reach out to.
If you want to get your wedding party involved, you can also enlist them to help reach out to your guests! Divide up your guest list evenly and assign certain sections to certain wedding party members. Just make sure to share your guest list with them so they can easily copy over addresses for you and you don’t end up having to track them down yourself.
Google Form
If you want to get a little more techy and streamlined, you can create a Google Form to send out to all your guests. You can blast the link out to all your guests at once in a mass email, saving you some time by not having to contact each person individually. A Google Form will help store your information in a central place, but depending on what format you’re keeping your guest list stored in, you may still need to copy over addresses. You’ll be able to download an automated spreadsheet of all the responses you’ve received on the form, broken down into separate columns for each question.
When creating your form, make sure to include these sections: First Name, Last Name, Address (line 1), Address (line 2; don’t make this text box required), City, State, and Zip Code. You can also include other information you want to gather like their partner’s first & last name (so you won’t be second-guessing spelling), children’s name(s), and title.
With this and the following option, keep in mind that your whole guest list might not be comfortable with technology. If you have guests that you know aren’t tech-savvy, you may want to not send them the Google Form and instead just reach out to them directly. It will save you and them some time and worry! Or, if there’s a family member or friend that is able to help them fill out the form, give that person a heads-up about what you’re sending.
Online Address Book
If Google forms aren’t your thing, there are a few websites that allow you to set up an online address book specifically for your wedding. Sites like Postable and Minted have free systems for storing your guests’ addresses and information. If you’re also planning on ordering Save the Dates (or even your invitations too) through Minted, Minted will be able to pull your guests’ names and address info from the online address book and label your envelopes for you. This takes out that extra step of uploading your info or entering it in manually.
After setting up an account with one of these sites, you’ll get a link that you can send out to your guests just like with a Google form. Once a guest fills out their info, it will automatically appear in your address book and be stored there until you’re ready to use it.
Collecting guest list addresses isn’t the most glamorous part of wedding planning, but pour yourself some bubbly, choose the option that makes the most sense for you, and you’ll be done in no time!
Wondering if you need a Wedding Planner?