The end of nagging or why I used Asana to plan my wedding

The New Year’s Eve before our May wedding, my husband and I joined some friends at a cabin in Pennsylvania. We were one of three engaged couples among the group — each with a different approach to planning.

One of the brides-to-be was in full project manager mode. She told me that she had planned out every trip she needed to take between then and June to handle arrangements for her out-of-town wedding.

I, on the other hand, had no agenda for the next five months before my out-of-town wedding! This encounter sent me into a mini (ok, full blown) freak-out about wedding planning and project management.

I promise this was an *internal* freak-out.

So I did what seemed extra to my fiancé but actually made a world of difference — I set up an Asana project for my wedding.

For those of you not in the know, Asana is an online project management tool. Google “online project management tool” at your peril — there are so many options on the market. I used Asana at work so I skipped Google and stuck with what I already knew worked.

Until I set up our project in Asana, our project management system consisted of an unorganized Google Drive folder, phone calls with our planner where we said we’d do things, and good old-fashioned nagging. As you might imagine, it wasn’t very effective.

In time, Asana won over my dubious fiancé. He started checking off tasks left and right and even added tasks for me in the program!

Here are a few reasons why Asana was a game changer for us:

Congratulations, you just finished formatting an address spreadsheet!

1. Due dates: Asana allowed my fiancé and me to catalogue every. single. thing. that needed to happen between January and May and figure out who would do what when.
2. Subtasks! We could create one big task, say venue payments, and break it down into first deposit, second deposit, and final payment. Then we could have the satisfaction of checking things off a to-do list one by one.
3. Unicorn gifs: We all need a little positive reinforcement, especially when we’re working on tedious tasks. Asana is there for you with a celebratory gif when you cross off that most odious of assignments (see above).
4. Mobile friendly: the Asana app was just as easy to use as the website. This was VERY important for enthusiastic fiancé adoption.
5. It’s free for small projects. “Free” sounds like angels singing when you’re planning a wedding.
6. Permissions: we decided to keep the project between the two of us but it probably would have helped if our planner had been on some of the tasks. If you’re really brave, you could even add your parents to some tasks!
7. And most importantly for our future marriage: Asana’s automated emails relieved us of nagging responsibilities. That meant less arguing and more time to focus on the things that really mattered — like which towels to put on our registry.

Now that’s software as a service!

That feeling when you’re totally relaxed because you checked off all your Asana tasks.