One of the best things about getting married in the age of smart phones are all the amazing apps that you can use to help get organized for your wedding! However, with so many apps out there it can very easily go from “woo-hoo there are so many apps to help me!” to “oh man…. there are just soooooo many apps! How do I know which are best!?”

The last thing you want to do is spend some of your precious wedding planning time researching which of the hundreds of apps are simple to use and especially helpful! So, for my Kate Holt Photography Brides and for all brides out there really, I’ve spent a day downloading and trying out various apps and I’ve narrowed it down to my personal 5 favs that I’m sharing with you here!

So, get ready to receive compliments on how organized and stress-free you’ve made your wedding planning experience, as once you’ve put these apps to use you’ll breeze through your wedding planning and be able to move onto some really fun wedding research, like where to go and what to do on your honeymoon!

Kate’s #1 Favorite Wedding App

Wed Happy : for all things planning!

What is the order of things you should be planning for your wedding? How do you keep all your vendor’s info straight including contact information, various timelines and payment data? When should you send out your Save the Dates? Where should you put that reservation code for the block of hotel rooms you reserved for your guests? How early should you schedule your dress fitting?

All these questions and more are answered and easily organized in this one, very simple app!

Built into this app is a timeline of tasks that have built-in suggested dates to have them completed by based on the date of your wedding. One of my favorite things about this app is that it has suggested and automatic dates set for your wedding checklist but it is also very easily customizable if you want to bump up or back due dates for various tasks.

It has a section to log the various payments which will come due from your vendors and even has a place to put in your guest list and helps you tack who has RSVP’d!

The interface of the app is super simple and it’s also not chalk full with advertisements which I love! (The gift registry section is automatically synced with Amazon, but you can absolutely customize that to local shops and businesses if you want)

This app is free to download and you don’t have to use a free trial that you’ll later have to pay for in order to have full access to all amazing components of the app, so in my book it’s my #1 for all things wedding! I only wish it were around when Dom and I said our I Do’s!

Click HERE to download Wed Happy!

Kate’s #2 Favorite Wedding App

Color Collect: your partner for choosing the perfect color palate for your Wedding!

Choosing the colors of your wedding is a foundation which sets the overall mood of your big day! If you are like me and not exactly born with that Joanna Gains innate knowledge of colors and how they work together, this app is a must-have for you!

When I was researching various apps to help with picking color palates the one I came across which was most frequently recommended was Pantone Studio, but honestly the interface was a bit confusing for me and I think it was a bit much for wedding planning as it can be used for interior design, graphic design and more.

Color Collect is a much simpler to use app that I enjoyed the interface of much more.

If you are in your venue for example, and you want to know what type of color palate would go well with the natural features of your venue you can literally take a photo of your venue with your phone and the app will show you various colors that would go great with it!

You can also take photos you’ve collected from pintrest and the app allows you to build a color palate similar to your inspiration photos!

One especially cool feature of the app is it’s customization. You can take a photo and adjust where the color data is coming from to avoid any colors or aspects of the photo you don’t want included in the palate you are building from your image. This is great for when you take a photo of your largely green and tan venue, but there was a red jacket hanging on a chair that you don’t want included in your color palate collection!

Each color you choose to be in your palate gives you the specific digital information so you can match it perfectly when you are designing your place cards, and save the dates.

If you have one color you love but aren’t sure what other colors would go great with it the app also gives you various color combination suggestions from your main color choice too which is super helpful for those of us who have no idea how to use a Color Wheel!

Try it out when you are picking your color scheme for your wedding, I guarantee you’ll love it!

Click HERE to download Color Collect!

Kate’s #3 Favorite Wedding App

Still White: The perfect app to help you find the dress of your dreams!

This app has it all- High End Fashion Dresses, Dresses available in boutiques close to you, Second-Hand dresses, and Sample Sale Gowns which are brand new dresses you can get at a fraction of the normal cost!

It also is a great tool if you just want to know what your style options are for your wedding dress! I know when I got married I didn’t know about all the cool options in dresses and so when I went to a bridal boutique I limited myself in the gowns I tried on just simply because I didn’t know to ask for anything other than a mermaid or A-line dress cuts!

This app is also really simple to use (can you see a theme here with all these apps, haha I’m not exactly a tech genius!) and has ALL the filter options you would want. You can filter dress searches by size (from 0-30+), Price, Designer, Shipping, Seller Location, Condition, Silhouette, Sleeve Type, Neckline, Length, Back Style, Color, and Fabric!

It also has a feature where you can save your favorite dresses to a separate list so that you can refer back to them, or show your local bridal shop the type of gowns you are leaning toward.

This app also doesn’t have the creepy- “upload a photo of your face and we’ll paste it on our model’s body” feature that a lot of dress apps have which in my book is a plus!

Playing around with this app I learned a ton about dresses and loved that you can shop local boutiques and vendors as well as the bigger name-brand designer dresses from big cities the world over.

Click HERE to download Still White!

Kate’s #4 Favorite Wedding App

Seat Puzzle - Your Best Friend when Designing your Reception Space and how to Arrange your Assigned Seating for Dinner!

I remember when I was in the middle of wedding planning I actually had a gigantic piece of butcher paper spread out on the kitchen floor with a drawn layout of the tables we had at our reception. I then had tiny printed labels of all the 175 guests who attended and I moved them around for hours with input from my parents until I found the perfect positioning for everyone! ….And then our cat decided that he needed to walk right through the middle of it and messed up about half of the layout! To say I was frustrated would be an understatement!

You can avoid all of this by simply downloading Sea Puzzle which is a wonderful little app which helps you to design the layout of your ceremony or reception!

This simple little app takes you step by step through planning the arrangement of each table, bench, archway, couch or chair in your wedding space. Built into the app are the accurate ratios of how your 8-person round table will look in your 500sq-foot reception hall, and the size of each space you design is totally customizable to your specific location.

When you are placing tables you can choose from all the standard reception furniture that are already built into the app such as round table, square tables, DJ table, smaller gift tables, projection screens, high-top cocktail tables…the list goes on and on!

You can import your guests from the contacts in your phone too so no more re-typing your guest’s names for the thousandth time either!

This app is awesome and will save you SO MUCH time, take if from me…. SO MUCH TIME! So what are you waiting for, download it now!

Click HERE to download Seat Puzzle!

Kate’s #5 Favorite Wedding App

The Guest - An app for photo sharing on your big day!

One of the most enjoyable things the day after your wedding is going through all the photos and videos your guests took! Of course you hire an amazing photographer who will get the most incredible and professional images of your day, but what about that totally ridiculous selfie your maid of honor took with the flower girl? And what about that hilarious boomerang video the groomsmen took while they were taking shots at the bar? Silly moments like these end up scattered all over various social media platforms and even with a wedding hashtag it can be a bit of a pain tracking them all down!

The Guest is an app where everyone can share their photos and videos via one platform so that you never miss a moment! It is simple to set up and easy to use so check it out for your wedding and keep it on your phone for other fun events where there might not necessarily be a professional photographer capturing your event moments so carefully. I’ve used this app for Christmas celebrations between Dom’s family and mine since our families live on separate continents, and sharing the photos of videos from holiday celebrations which physically occurred worlds apart in one place makes us feel more connected.

So, try it out and if you like it, keep it on your phone to come in handy at your next event or gathering!

Click HERE to download The Guest for Apple Devices!

Click HERE to download The Guest for Android Devices!

Bonus App!

Esty! For…. Everything!

Etsy is such a popular app that most people are familiar with it, but just in case you don’t know about it, I wanted to list it here!

Etsy connects you with incredible local artisans and small businesses who can custom make pretty much any decor you could ever imagine!

Etsy is a go-to for me as I love supporting local artists and other entrepreneurs and this is the easiest way to get connected with so many of them all in one place!

Click HERE to download Etsy!

I this blog brings some simplification to your Wedding Planning Experience!

Of course I don’t pretend that these five apps are the only apps you’ll need, but they will certainly give you a start and provide a helpful foundation for some of the more difficult pieces of the wedding-planning puzzle!

Have another wedding app that you feel deserves to be one of my favorites? Drop me a note with the app name and why you love it! I’d love to update my list from year to year with the wonderful suggestions of other brides and grooms going through the wedding planning process!