favorite planning resources

I'm at work so I don't have full access to my clip file (more on this later), so the mood board posts will continue soooon.

But I wanted to share the online resources that have made planning more organized and, in some cases, easier to share.

1. Google Docs

Oh Google Docs, how I love thee. At first I was just using the spreadsheets to keep track of potential vendors and their quotes, for the sake of comparison. But once I started booking vendors, I saw more potential! Sharing!

So I signed my mom up for gmail and invited her to the budget spreadsheet (she is paying for about 85% of the wedding). We can both add things, make notes, and keep track of the overall budget while living 12 hours away. Perfecto.

2. Mint.com

Ah, another money application. This isn't so wedding-related, but it is supremely valuable.You input all of your banking information (the more you supply, the more accurate it gets), and it spits back a very visual representation of your spending. You can then go back and set budgets for individual categories: utilities, entertainment, dining, etc, and make your own. So we've created a "wedding" budget that's actually our way of tracking the wedding savings. The other neat thing about Mint is the Iphone app. It pushes updates to you, like fees on your ATM transactions, recent payments, paychecks, etc. My fiance calls it "the tattletale." Oh how true it is.

3. Style Circle Inspiration Board Maker

This is a so-new feature on Style Me Pretty and it's awesome. Instead of dealing with Photoshop to make a mood board, you can upload images directly to this application and it generates a very clean board. I particularly like it because it saves the "credits" for a photo. You can then post it directly on your own site.

One little tip though for those that save images from the web willy-nilly, like me: When you're saving the photo, save it as the credit. I cannot count how many times I've saved an image and have no idea where it came from, especially if it's something I might want to actually buy. If you want to save even more info about an image, change its "Properties." Right-click the thumbnail (sorry Macs I have no idea how you right click stuff..), click Properties, go to Details, and fill in the relevant blanks. You can then list the website and any info that may be useful later on.

4. Dropbox

This is something I really like but don't use enough - if I did, I'd have access to all of my clippings! You sign up for their free service and then download the widget for all of the computers you use. After that, you can "drop" files you want to share with yourself into the box, for access later from any of your computers or the web. You can also share folders with other users, which is what I've done with my fiance and my mom again. So instead of forcing her to check her email to see inspiration photos, I just drop the photos in the box.

So those are my web essentials for planning. Do you have any favorites?