Wedding Planning Checklist (Free Printable)

A one-page countdown checklist you can print and pin up: twenty checkbox tasks spread from a year out to the final week, a write-in budget priority table, and four opinions on what order to do things in. It prints as-is from this page (Ctrl+P or Cmd+P), and the same task list exists as a tracked sheet in the Wedding Planner Spreadsheet at the bottom.

The 12-month countdown checklist

Task names come straight from the planner's countdown sheet, where each one carries a months-before number and a live status count. Print the page, then tick the boxes with a pen.

12 months out

6 months out

1 month out

Week of

Budget priorities, written by you

No suggested numbers on this one. The same checklist in every city, venue, and headcount produces wildly different totals, so any figure printed here would be a guess. Sort your own spending into three piles and write the lines in:

PriorityYour line (write it in)What tends to fit there
Must-haveThe things the day falls apart without: the venue, the food, the person capturing it
Nice-to-haveUpgrades you'd enjoy but can trade away: extra florals, a bigger dessert table
SkipThings guests barely register: favors nobody takes home, add-on print packages

When a new idea shows up mid-planning, ask which pile it belongs in before you look at what it costs. That ordering is what the priority table is for.

Four opinions on order of operations

  1. Book the venue before anything else. The date, the guest ceiling, and most caterer options all inherit from that one booking. In the planner's own countdown sheet, "Set date and book venue" is the first row for a reason.
  2. Draft the guest list before you fill in budget lines. Headcount moves nearly every other number, and a list you trim early saves renegotiating things later.
  3. Track deposits owed, not just agreed prices. The number that bites is the balance still due, which is why the vendor sheet in the planner carries a separate deposits-paid and balance-due column.
  4. Count plus-ones when you plan seats. A yes with a plus-one is two chairs, and a seating chart that ignores this runs out of tables at the worst time.

The same checklist, tracked in a spreadsheet

The printable above is a snapshot. The Wedding Planner Spreadsheet runs the same countdown as a live sheet where status counts update as you type, alongside four more linked sheets:

SheetWhat it does
Budget12 vendor categories with Allocated, Actual cost, Paid so far, Remaining budget, % of allocated spent, and a Running total spent column. TOTAL row sums it all
VendorsName, category, phone, email, agreed price, deposit paid, and a Balance due column. TOTAL row shows total contracted, paid, and still owed
Checklist14 tasks on a 12-month countdown (months-before column), status counts via COUNTIF: Done / In progress / Not started
GuestsName, RSVP, dietary needs, plus-ones. Counts: invited, yes / pending / no, dietary needs among yes RSVPs, total seats including plus-ones
SeatingTable assignments with a COUNTIF count per table and a total assigned number to check against your yes RSVPs

It works in Microsoft Excel 2007+ and Google Sheets (upload to Google Drive, no conversion step). Every sheet ships with sample rows marked "SAMPLE row - replace with your own" so you can see the format before typing over them, and every summary cell is a live formula built on standard SUM, COUNTIF, and IF functions. No macros, nothing that needs permission prompts. License is personal use, including weddings you help family or friends plan.

Get the Wedding Planner Spreadsheet - 5 linked sheets

Instant download after checkout.