Jewish weddings
The list of features available for organizing a Jewish wedding is about the same as what's available for other groups. What's special for Jewish weddings is our wedding checklist — which is about as thorough a list for Jewish weddings as you'll find anywhere. The lists in the typical wedding magazines may mention your huppah and ketubah in passing, but how about including kiddush cups in the list of things to be sure to have someone bring to the ceremony? Or reminding you to order or make yarmulkes and benchers for your guests? Or attaching written conditions to your caterer's contracts (including the baker for your wedding cake) to ensure that the food is kosher? Some of this, of course, is just details — but then, isn't that what a checklist is for?
We also have features that are especially useful for Orthodox Jews: only The Organized Wedding is designed to make it fast and easy to arrange separate seating for men's and women's tables (see our Seating section).
Finally, if you'd like to use Hebrew anywhere in our software — for example, if you're using our Notes section to write up a wedding program or your readings — go ahead! The Organized Wedding can handle it.
Protestant weddings (Baptist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc.)
If you're looking at all of these other religions and wondering if The Organized Wedding is designed for everybody but you, relax. Yes, we offer a ton of special features for lots of groups — but The Organized Wedding is still designed from the ground up to be superbly suited for handling Christian weddings. The traditions of American and European etiquette, just to give an example, have been built into the software from the very beginning. (Just give us the titles of your guests, and we can automatically produce envelope wording which is formally perfect for both outer and inner envelopes, whether your guests are "Mr. and Mrs." or judges and ambassadors.) The Organized Wedding is familiar with the full range of events that can be associated with Christian weddings — from engagement parties to showers to rehearsal dinners — and it can help you with all of them.
If you were planning a Muslim or Buddhist wedding, we'd be able to say we're the only wedding software that can help you. If you're planning a Christian wedding, we can't say that ... but take a look at our features, and then compare us with the others. We can't say we're the only software that can help you. We're completely confident in saying we're the best.
Roman Catholic or Orthodox Christian weddings
If you're looking at all of these other religions and wondering if The Organized Wedding is designed for everybody but you, relax. Yes, we offer a ton of special features for lots of groups — but The Organized Wedding is still designed from the ground up to be superbly suited for handling Christian weddings. The traditions of American and European etiquette, just to give an example, have been built into the software from the very beginning. (Just give us the titles of your guests, and we can automatically produce envelope wording which is formally perfect for both outer and inner envelopes, whether your guests are "Mr. and Mrs." or judges and ambassadors.) The Organized Wedding is familiar with the full range of events that are often associated with Christian weddings — from engagement parties to showers to rehearsal dinners — and it can help you with all of them.
In addition, though, we have a number of special features to help Roman Catholics or Orthodox Christians in particular. For example, the wedding checklist is customized to meet your specific needs, like making sure your hair style doesn't interfere with the crown (if you're Orthodox), or publishing banns (if you're Roman Catholic).
Beyond the checklist, The Organized Wedding also understands the etiquette of your church organization. If you need to send an invitation to a Roman Catholic cardinal, we can put his formal title on the invitation envelope for you ("His eminence, John Cardinal Smith"). The same goes for an O.C.A. bishop ("The Right Reverend Bishop JOHN"), or a Greek Orthodox nun ("Sister Martha (Jones)"). And, of course, if the proper wording for the inner envelopes is different — don't worry, we'll put the correct titles on those too.
Unitarian Universalist weddings
If you're a Unitarian, then the odds are good that you're not going to be content with reading just this section about Unitarian weddings! Take a look through the rest of this list, and see all of the different faiths we can help with. (Let us know what we missed.) The good news is that you don't have to pick just one — you can select as many faiths to contribute to your wedding as you'd like (or none), and we'll do out best to turn on appropriate features and add appropriate items to your task list. Before you gleefully turn everything on, though, there are a couple of things we ought to explain:
First of all, The Organized Wedding is designed to help you with all of the organizing and planning aspects of your wedding (and other events), not to make suggestions for the ceremonial details or theology. This means that turning the various religions on and off is going to be more of a lesson in "comparative logistics" than "comparative religions". You may learn something about how various groups do their planning, but you won't learn much in the way of neat information about their beliefs or ceremonial practices. If you tell the program you want to include all of the religions we handle, some interesting things will certainly pop into your task list. But it might not give you the multi-cultural ideas for your ceremony that you could be looking for.
That said, we offer tremendous flexibility for planning whatever you have in mind, drawing upon whichever combinations of faiths you'd like. You might find The Organized Wedding culturally interesting. We're completely confident you'll find it useful.
Weddings for other religions
For Sikh, Buddhist, and Bahá'í weddings, The Organized Wedding customizes the task list — for example, if you're planning a Bahá'í wedding, we'll remind you that you need the consent of your parents if they're living. The Organized Wedding also understands which religions use or don't use alcohol, and which weddings don't typically include ring ceremonies— and it uses that knowledge to create a checklist that's right for your wedding. And, of course, you can always add any events you want to plan, and we'll help you organize those, too.
Interfaith weddings
Just tell The Organized Wedding which religions will contribute to your events, and the software will do its best to give you the features — and the specialized task list — that might be appropriate for that combination of faiths. For example, if you're having an Islamic/Christian wedding, we'll leave the section about planning alcohol out of your task list, on the premise that it might be offensive to some of your Muslim guests — but we'll give you the option to add it if you want it. If you're planning a Hindu/Protestant wedding, we'll give you the option of organizing a mehendi party in addition to the (optional) bachelor's party. If you're having a Roman Catholic/Jewish wedding, we'll remind you about meeting with the priest ... and bringing a wine glass to break during the ceremony.
Plus, of course, you have all of the features and options that are available for each of the religions you've requested.
Non-religious weddings
If all of this talk about religion is making you twitchy, relax. Just leave all of the religions unchecked when you start the program. We won't hit you over head with language like getting a "church" and finding a "minister". Sure, we'll still offer you the trappings of a typical American wedding like having bridesmaids or a best man. Beyond that, we'll help you find a reception site, issue invitations, order a cake, keep track of who's coming, get people fed... all of the things that you'll need to do to celebrate your wedding with your friends and family, whether anybody wearing a robe blesses you or not. (OK, so a justice of the peace wears a robe too. But he/she will generally settle for signing the papers and wishing you all the best.)
Destination weddings and wedding weekends
The Organized Wedding has the flexibility to handle whatever you want to plan. For example, if you're planning a destination wedding or several wedding-related events that take place over a weekend (or longer), you'll want to invite your guests to all the events on one invitation. But you'll need to keep track of their responses separately, because some guests won't be able to come to everything.
No other software can handle this like The Organized Wedding. Try our free trial, then take a look at the others with your plans in mind. You'll see the difference right away.