One afternoon as I pulled out of my Mary Poppins bag the ungainly three-inch wedding binder, one of Drew’s roommates asked whether all brides had one. From what he had seen, all to-be brides wielded large three-ring binders with colorful tabs separating wedding-planning categories: dress, cake, photographer, reception . . . .

Maybe this should have been my first post: tips on how to keep it all together. Well, better late than never.

It feels like you’re asking a lot when you ask a friend to be in your bridal party.

She has to buy a dress that she might not wear again, like Katherine Heigl in 27 Dresses; she has to block off a weekend and probably take one or more days off of work; and she has to make travel plans, which, with gas prices rising, can be pretty expensive.

Back before there were Gossip Girl parties or Grey’s Anatomy nights, women would gather to sew. They’d sit around a table and quilt or sit in the parlor and needlepoint. I don’t know which activity was more important: sewing or catching up. Quilts had to be made to keep the Little House on the Prairie family warm in the winter, and in Gone With the Wind, Melanie and Scarlett diverted anxieties about Ashley by sewing him scarves or sashes. But along with women’s necessity for crafting comes a penchant for chatting. I don’t know how many quilting bees go on these days, but I think the idea of women meeting to craft and chat is still very much alive.

I found my wedding dress on a Saturday morning, and that day I also found myself trying to talk down my wedding dress size. The bridal consultant wrapped me in a measuring tape and before I knew it sized me at an eight. Hmmm. In my mind’s eye, I was seeing myself on the wedding day as a size four. This eight business was just not going to go down.

Don't stress too much when making the invitations yourself—your relatives aren't going to measure to make sure your borders have perfect spacing.

A dozen tips . . .

1. Enlist the girls. Spend some quality craft time with your friends by hosting an invitation-making party. I’m hosting an afternoon tea, complete with scones, Darjeeling tea, and invitation supplies. It’s not only productive and extremely helpful, but it’s just another fun excuse to hang with the girls, catch up, chat, and eat.

2. Enlist your guy. I bet it’ll be pretty enjoyable watching your fiancé tie ribbon bows and perfect his stamping technique. I’m excited to witness that.

3. Hunt around for pretty paper. There are tons of Web sites devoted to DIY invitations, and many will even let you buy sample paper so you can try it out and see if the color or weight works. Or you can visit Paper Source in Georgetown and just load up. I did!

When you’re single, people ask, “How’s the single life?” or “Met anyone lately?” When you’re dating, it’s “How’s it going with that man of yours?” When you’re newly married, it’s “How’s the adjustment to married life?” Of course, the exchange varies depending on depth of friendship, social situation, etc., but really, the question everyone asks when you’re engaged is “How’s the wedding planning going?”

My reply is always an enthusiastic “Great!” In e-mails and texts, I remember to follow the “Great” with an exclamation point, but really I feel my “great” reply is sometimes . . . greatly ironic.

Make a date out of creating a wedding playlist. Image courtesy of Apple.com.

When you’re working within a budget, you have to make some choices about what’s most important. Have you always dreamed of having a destination wedding in Maui? If so, you’re seriously limiting the number of people able to attend. But that also means your invitations will be few; the sand, sea, and sky will be your ceremony’s decorations; and you won’t have as many mouths to feed at the reception.

Early on, Drew and I decided that the people were going to be the most important part of our wedding. The family you saw and spent reunions with on summer evenings, those friends from grade school who have been there through everything from knee scrapes to heartbreaks, the college friends who you thought would never be as good as the high-school ones but who became such close sisters and brothers. . . . Yeah, the people are pretty important. We couldn’t imagine not having all those VIPs around us on our big day.