When it comes time to start planning your wedding, technology and smartphone apps are probably the furthest things from your mind. But tech has gotten into everything, and wedding planning is no different. Today, there are a wide array of wedding apps designed to make it easier to prepare for, and stage, the big day. Looking for a way to manage your wedding budget? There’s an app for that. Struggling with guest lists and invitations. There’s an app for that. Is your gift registry getting out of hand? You guessed it…there’s an app for that, too. So, if you’re ready to bring the latest tech to your wedding plans, here are five of the most popular wedding apps around.
#1 – Wedding Budget Controller
Anyone who has ever planned a wedding knows that the budget is the first point of business. Apple’s own Wedding Budget Controller makes it easy to set a reasonable budget and stick to it. Using the templates provided, you can select the type and style of wedding you want, plug in the variables (number of guests, catering costs, etc), and determine a workable budget for the big day. Your budget plans can be easily shared via email or Dropbox, so everyone in the planning party is constantly up to date.
#2 – Appy Couple
Personalized wedding websites have become all the rage, and they make it easy to manage all of your wedding day details while keeping friends and family up to date with your wedding plans. For a nominal fee, Appy Couple helps you to create a personalized wedding website, including details on the venue, wedding day itinerary, and travel and lodging for out of town guests. Once you have created your website, Appy Couple provides a handy app that your guests can download for free, keeping them up to date with all of your wedding day info.
#3 – Postable
One of the more tedious aspects of planning a wedding is collecting and organizing the addresses of all of your wedding guests. Postable is a free app that makes it easy to collect and store all of those important addresses, so they will be right at hand when you begin sending out wedding invitations and thank you notes. Simply create your virtual address book, and your friends and family and fill in all of the necessary information at their leisure. Postable also offers a stationary service, allowing you to select wedding invitations and thank you cards from a variety of online sellers. For a small fee, Postable will create your cards, and mail them to everyone on in your address book. Easy peasy.
#4 – Eversnap
Come the big day, everyone will be taking pictures of you and your wedding party. It’s easy enough to collect and control the photos being taken by your hired photographer, but what about all of those candid amateur snaps? Eversnap is a handy little app that lets all of your wedding guests upload their photos to a central data base. You can organize the photos by sender or by event (ie bachelorette party, wedding shower, etc), and you have total control over which photo albums are public and which are private. Eversnap even allows your guests to upload their photos in real time, so you can stream them on a big screen during the reception.
#5 – Gift Registry
Managing your wedding gift registry can be complicated, both for you and for your guests. My Registry is a free app that makes managing your gift registries a snap. You can add specific items by simply scanning the bar code with your smartphone, or entering the items manually. The app also helps your guests to find the lowest prices on items on your wish list. When your wedding guests make a purchase, your wish list will be updated, making it easy for your friends and family to find the perfect gift.
An app may not be the first thing you think of when you start to plan your wedding, but you’d be surprised how many useful little apps are out there for just that purpose. We live in an increasing tech reliant society, and wedding planning can be made much easier with a few well chosen applications. If it’s time to start planning your wedding, why not put technology to work for you, and download a few helpful apps to help make your plans run smooth.
