Wedding 2.0: Seven interactive planning tools

For this week's roundup, I thought we'd put together a list of some cool planning tools that are making  use of the latest technologies to help you plan your wedding. If you know anything that should be in this list that I've missed, please post in the comments!

Olivia Luca Design Studio  This Portland-based design firm has an addictive Flash tool where you canOlivia-luca-wedding-gown
design your bridesmaids' dresses from silhouette down to the sash and the trim.  Eco-friendly fabric options are available for order as well, or you can be like me and just keep making tons of dresses online and daydreaming about the fetes I can wear them to!

Wedding Gown Guru   I met Bridgette, the "Wedding Gown Guru" , on twitter.com and took a look at her interactive gown selection tool.  Simply answer a series of questions about your style and personality, and she will suggest several different looks for you! Much more fun that a visit to a crowded bridal salon, and a great way to prep yourself before going out to shop in person.

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David's Bridal "Dress Your Wedding"  Thanks to Sasha Souza, celebrity planner and the brains behind Sparkliatti, for turning me on to this. They have done a great job in creating a Flash tool that allows you to mock up your bridesmaids' gowns and colors, plus groomsmen's attire, so you can preview the lineup of your whole virtual wedding party, including groomsmen and child attendants!

Calculators at Eventageous  Eventageous is an Austin-based event planning firm, and they've been on Eventageous-austin-planner
the cutting edge for forever. I know this because they've had these great calculators on their Resources page since I started my business in 1999! Scroll down this page to see the Calculators; here, you can tote up everything from the number of people that will fit into a given square footage, to a sample wedding budget. Simple tech, but so helpful!

Wedding-mapper-logo
Wedding Mapper  So many weddings involve out of towners, so this interactive mapping tool with great design is a must.  You can even tag the locations with your notes ("Here's where he proposed to me"/"This is our favorite bar"). Also included is a method for leaving and reading reviews of vendors.

Backpackit.com  Not an exclusively-wedding tool… Nonetheless, Backpack, the consumer version of design Backpacklogo-small
powerhouse 37signals' Basecamp, is inexpensive, easy to use, and a great way to invite collaboration across a large group (think Mother in law, mom, bridesmaids, dad, the groom, and your wedding planner!) I'm currently using it with a client and love it — we might even make it part of our standard package in the future.

Evite Drink Calculator  Most of us have used Evite for their free online invitations, but I recently discovered their handy-dandy drink calculator. It's not super detailed, but it at least can give you a place to start, if you have no idea where to begin as far as beverage purchases.

Hope you find these helpful!

10 thoughts on “Wedding 2.0: Seven interactive planning tools

  1. Very helpful links. I was just thinking I need to update the links on my wedding planning e-guide and your collection of tools are great resources.

  2. Wow Emee,
    I had no idea there are so many tools like these online. The couples I’m photographing will be getting a link to your handy blog entry. It’s always great to be able to help couples with the whole process. Thank you!

  3. Backpack is not a “consumer version of Basecamp.” These are two different products: Backpack is an idea manager, calendar and intranet, while Basecamp is a project manager and client collaboration tool, which incorporates centralized milestones, messages, file sharing, etc. Both are worth every penny.

  4. Mark, thank you for your clarification! I accept that your comment is technically accurate as far as there being two different products. I hope my post wasn’t construed as Basecamp not being worth its cost — for those who are going to use all its features, it definitely is!
    At the same time, this being a wedding planning blog written for brides and grooms, the description helps my users get their minds around what Backpack is in relation to what else is out there.
    If you poll the brides’ community, I think you’ll find a lot more Backpack users than Basecamp ones, partly because Basecamp (by my completely non-scientific observations) is considered to be more complicated to the average user who isn’t a project manager.
    Another way to put it would be: if this blog were written for other wedding planners — I would probably recommend Basecamp, as we are managing multiple projects and need a project management tool. But since here I’m writing for brides, Backpack is a more appropriate tool for them.
    I’m guessing that 37signals doesn’t have a huge problem with my description since they posted it on their blog (http://hub.tm/?NDHDZ). It’s probably less important to them that I get their product description perfect, as long as I’m using it, loving it, and telling others about it.

  5. Isn’t it amazing what the Internet has done for wedding planning? I got married two years ago, and even since then things have changed to become much more user-friendly and convenient. I think it’s great to have such a robust tool as brides are so busy already!

  6. I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
    -miyaka-

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