How to Develop a Wedding Planning App?

Want to know how to develop a wedding planning app?

This is a great market that is highly lucrative if you get it right. To do that, you need a great development team as developing a wedding planning application requires a deep understanding of programming languages like Java, Swift, etc., and various frameworks, APIs, and development methodologies like Agile and Scrum, etc.

If you don’t have a professional team with this relevant expertise to take on that task then submit a request to us and one of our tech account managers will get back to you to answer any questions that you might have.

Ok, so before we cover how to build a wedding planning app, let‘s first review a few examples. This will help you gather valuable design ideas and also to better understand the target audience of your wedding planner mobile application.

Examples of wedding planning apps

Bridebook

Bridebook is a highly popular wedding planning app. It‘s free and pins its success on several very useful core features such as the ability to search for wedding venues by location, etc. One example of a drawback is that the app is only available in the UK market at the current time. They have both Android and iOS apps, strongly consider doing the same for your idea. 

The app also provides planning tools and the ability to create a guest list. The ability to create a wedding gift list is another good feature. One can create a wedding checklist and get a list of suppliers. Perhaps the most powerful feature is that users can manage their wedding budgets via the app.

WeddingHappy

WeddingHappy is another great free wedding planner app. It has both an Android and iOS version. Planning events with it is simple thanks to its checklist feature where users can create customized wedding plans. The app also offers social integration features and the paid premium account has a really helpful messaging feature.

Some other great features include payment tracking, creating a summary of spending, and the ability of users to coordinate with wedding supply vendors.

UiWedPlanner

iWedPlanner offers many useful features. The app has a to-do list. Users can easily organize their various wedding supply providers too. There are lots of other useful features, e.g., the app helps in keeping track of wedding invitations, seating arrangements, budget, etc. This free app is available on both Android and iOS.

The Knot

The Knot enables users to search for venues. Users can access a comprehensive list of wedding supply providers. Managing guests and gifts becomes easy with this app. One can create a customized wedding plan. Users can also take advantage of the checklist feature. The app is available both on iOS and Android.

Wedding planning app features

A great wedding planner app must offer the following features:

• It should have an elegant design that appeals to its users.
• The ’User Interface‘ (UI) should be easy. Planning a wedding is no easy task, and a complex app can only make it harder.
• A good wedding planning app should help in building a customized wedding plan.
• The app should enable users to create their checklists.
• Users should be able to search for wedding venues.
• A great wedding planning app should provide a comprehensive list of wedding supply providers.
• Managing the budget, including tracking payments and expenses should be possible.
• Managing the guest list, sending invites, and tracking responses are key features that the wedding app should provide.
• Calendar synchronization is important.
• The app should have push notification features, which can prove valuable for important reminders.
• Social integration and messaging features are required.

Read this great article on 10 great wedding apps to help you plan your big day to learn more about these features if you wish to delve deeper into this.

Create a wedding planning app without coding: Appy Pie app builder

 

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For entrepreneurs trying to launch their app quickly, Appy Pie offers an app builder for a wedding planning app. The main drawback is the finished product will be highly generic and limited in terms of functionalities.

We strongly advise creating a custom wedding app using experienced developers if you have the budget. However, if you wish to build a simple wedding app then it is a good option. 

With the Appy Pie app builder, you can incorporate the following features:

• The app can showcase wedding venues.
• A user will get a location-based venue directory.
• Users can create a custom wedding planner.
• The app can have an online shopping option for wedding supplies.
• Guests can get directions to the venue from the app.
• Social integration with Instagram, YouTube, etc.

The app builder is intuitive, and you can access it here. You need to sign-up for Appy Pie here. Subsequently, you use the drag-and-drop app builder to select a layout, add features, and get the app ready.

You need to use the ’Google Play‘ and ’Apple App Store‘ publishing guidelines to publish your app on either platform. Here are Google Play’s guidelines and Apple App Store guidelines if you wish to learn more.

Visit the Appy Pie pricing page to get their pricing details. Note that only their Platinum plan lets you use your own branding information. This is extremely important to have on your app so you really need to pay for this option.

You don‘t need developers, moreover, the company provides cloud hosting. The product cost is your only cost to make a wedding planning app in this approach.

A custom development approach for wedding planning app development

App builders can help you to launch the app quickly without a development team, however, our research showed that every single app that is succeeding was a custom build with customized features. This type of development requires a custom development approach.

The high-level approach to develop a wedding planning app from scratch

In this approach, the following is the outline of the software development project:

1. Onboard a skilled development team.
2. Get a ’Mobile Backend as a Service‘ provider to manage the mobile backend. This allows you to focus on mobile application development meaning that you save time.
3. Design and develop the mobile front-end.
4. Use ’Application Programming Interfaces‘ (APIs) for common functions in a wedding planning app.

A mobile app is for customer engagement, i.e., it’s a ’System of Engagement’ (SoE). As you know, mobile apps undergo frequent enhancements, which is a key characteristic of an SoE.

This requires an iterative development methodology, and the traditional waterfall methodology isn’t effective. You should use the Agile methodology, which I have earlier explained in “How to build an Agile development team”.

The wedding planning app development team

The team for this project should have the following team members (Note: this is a generalized list, your project requirements will determine exactly what skills you need):

• Business analysts;
• UI/UX designers;
• iOS and Android developers;
• Testers;
• A project manager (PM).

Your PM will be tasked with ensuring optimal productivity from your remote team. If you or your PM need any tips then read our guide on 10 essential tips to managing remote employees.

UI/UX design for the wedding planning app

A simple and user-friendly UI is key, therefore, you should focus on the following aspects:

1. The mobile navigation menu, for which our guide on Mobile navigation menu examples can help.
2. Use a color scheme that suits a mobile device. It should be aligned with your branding. Check our guide on 8 Trends in Mobile App Color Scheme for more details.
3. You should use universally recognized icons. This way your users can understand the functions clearly, even if you don‘t provide text labels. Read how to design the perfect icon for your mobile app for guidance.

I/UX DESIGN FOR THE WEDDING PLANNING APP

Your wedding app needs a simple, user-friendly, yet elegant user interface (UI). Work closely with UX/UI designers to achieve this. You can use the following resources:

• Material design guidelines for Android UI design;
• Human Interface Guidelines for iOS UI designs;
• Our guide to mobile navigation menu examples;
• Our guide to mobile app color schemes;
• The DevTeam.Space guide to mobile app icon design.

Mobile backend management

You have noticed that we have not recommended any mobile backend developers or infrastructure specialists for the team. The reason is that we recommend you use an MBaaS provider. MBaaS providers address a range of important aspects.

For example, they handle the cloud infrastructure, persistent storage, database provisioning, security, user management, user authentication, scaling, and security. This frees you up, therefore, you can focus on the mobile frontend.

We recommend you use AWS Amplify, the MBaaS platform offered by AWS. AWS Amplify utilizes the cloud infrastructure of AWS. Read our guide to MBaaS platforms if you need more options.

Event management APIs

You need to design and implement the relevant event-planning features in your app. We recommend you use Grenadine event management software.

Grenadine provides an integrated solution for event management. The company provides comprehensive event management APIs. You can access the Grenadine API documentation to understand how to use them.

You can explore other options too, e.g., Explara. You can use the Explara APIs, furthermore, the company provides high-quality API documentation. Our guide to building an event planning app can help you too.

APIs for key wedding planning app functions

In order to integrate the key wedding planning app functions you will need to use several APIs. We will focus on a few examples below. 

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How to integrate wedding supplies vendors

When it comes to the integration with the wedding supplies vendors, for the sake of simplicity, I am including wedding venue providers also in this category.

The key question here is, where you are launching your wedding planning app? Depending on your geographic area coverage, you will need to partner with local providers.

Subsequently, you need to manually integrate their APIs into your app. All MBaaS providers have adequate documentation to help with API integration. Seek this out and then get your developers to implement it.

Event management APIs

Another example is the event planning function. I recommend the Attendify event management APIs for this. This helps with the schedule management for the wedding event. To use their APIs, you need to sign-up with them. Their tutorials are very helpful. Here are their pricing plans.

Note that there are other event management APIs available, e.g., Explara, and Grenadine. In an earlier article, we explained how to build an event planning app, we recommend reading it if you want to learn more. 

APIs for creating a customized checklist

A wedding planning app should allow users to build their customized checklists. Users should also be able to share them with others, helping them with the wedding planning process.

I recommend you use the Evernote API for this. While the primary use case of this API is in note-taking, it also allows for creating and sharing checklists.

Click here to access the Evernote APIs. You need to first register yourself with Evernote. Here is the Evernote API documentation. Contact them for their pricing information.

Our guide to making a note-taking app like Evernote can help you.

Managing a wedding planning app development project

I recommend the ’Scrum‘ technique for this kind of project. It is likely that you will first launch a ’Minimum Viable Product‘ (MVP). This helps you to get valuable feedback directly from the market and will allow you to build the app in iterations. 

Based on the feedback, you will be able to decide on other features and enhancements. The scrum technique, with its‘ ’Sprints‘, i.e., iterations, is ideal for this.

You need to organize your team into a small and coherent unit, however, it‘s a cross-functional team where developers and testers work together. The PM is the ’Scrum master‘, whereas a ’Product owner‘ (PO) provides the requirements in a document called the ’Product backlog‘.

The scrum team estimates features. The contents of sprints are decided in a meeting called the ’Sprint planning meeting‘, based on the estimate and priority. The team conducts a ’Daily stand-up meeting‘ to discuss the progress, upcoming tasks, any issues, etc. The project stakeholders approve past and new sprints in the ’Sprint review meeting‘, subject to all developed features working properly.

There is also a lessons-learned exercise called the ’Sprint retrospective meeting‘ after the Sprint. Consult our guide on How to build a Scrum development team to gain an in-depth understanding of the Scrum technique.

Important tools for the project

An iterative development project needs a robust set of DevOps tools. This helps with the rapid release of new features. DevOps tools help in automating testing, build management, continuous integration, and deployment. We recommend you use the AWS suite of DevOps tools.

You also need a modern project management tool. Asana is a good option since it‘s very easy to use.

We have provided other examples in our guide to agile project management tools.

The cost of making a wedding planning app using the custom-development approach

AWS Amplify and Asana publish their pricing plans on their website. Contact the other API providers for their pricing plans. Your development cost depends on the features and the labor market. A complex end-to-end project like this might require you to get professional help.

Consult our guide on How to find the best software development company? before engaging a development partner to develop your own wedding planner app.

Tips and traps when developing wedding websites and wedding planning apps

We will now offer a few tips for developing wedding planning apps, furthermore, it is worth mentioning a few risks too. These are as follows:

A. Take the native development approach for developing mobile wedding apps

You might have considered both cross-platform and native development approaches for wedding planning app development. We recommend you develop native apps.

Native apps can make the best use of the hardware features of a mobile device. You develop native Android apps using Java or Kotlin. On the other hand, you develop native iOS apps using Swift. These programming languages use the respective operating system capabilities optimally.

Cross-platform apps allow you to reuse code, therefore, you save development costs. However, native apps offer better user experience, performance, and security than cross-platform apps.

You stand a better chance to attract and retain users with a native app. Don’t compromise the user experience.

B. Consider using the full-stack development approach for wedding websites

You will use JavaScript for front-end web development. Several options exist for backend web development, e.g., Java, Python, PHP, etc. Consider using Node.js for backend web development. This enables you to use JavaScript for the entire wedding planner web development project.

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E.g., you can use the MEAN (MongoDB, Express.JS, Angular, and Node.js) stack for web development. Another option is the MERN (MongoDB, Express.js, React.JS, and Node.JS) stack.

You will find it relatively easy to hire JavaScript developers. Don’t choose a technology stack that makes the wedding app development project unnecessarily complex.

C. Analyze your business strengths before deciding on the features to offer

Best wedding planning apps offer features based on the strengths of the company. Best apps in any industry focus on their strengths, and wedding planning apps aren’t different. Can you really become the one-stop shop for planning a wedding? If you can’t, then offer to do what you are good at.

Wedding planning apps can do many things, e.g.:

• Managing the wedding budget;

• Providing the tools for the planning process;

• Managing the wedding invitations;

• Handling communication with the wedding guests;

• Managing the tasks leading up to the wedding date;

• Handling associated events like the engagement party, bridal shower, bachelorette party, bridal party, etc.;

• Managing the wedding registry;

• Tracking wedding expenses;

• Managing the wedding party;

• Securely storing the wedding photos;

• Providing a catalog of wedding dresses.

You might have the business capabilities to offer many of the above services. However, you might not be able to offer all of them.

Trying to do everything can be a risk. That’s especially true when you don’t have the business capabilities to offer certain features.

You might need to establish partnerships with local vendors, therefore, your app might need to integrate the APIs of other wedding vendors. All of the above points and more must be properly reflected in your project plan. 

D. Study the wedding planning apps that offer the services that you plan to offer

While you might have already reviewed a few wedding planning apps, we recommend you review the ones that offer similar services. E.g., design-obsessed brides can use the Pantone Studio app. You can review it if your app deals with this area.

The following are a few more examples:

• Instagram is good for photo inspiration.

• Honeyfund Wedding Registry is good for managing the gift registry. It’s one of the popular free wedding apps.

• Review Ceremony, a popular one among the separate camera apps.

• Among the free wedding apps, LadyMarry Wedding Planner helps to plan for the wedding day.

Don’t review and analyze the free wedding apps only. Paid apps often offer highly differentiating features. You will likely find some excellent ideas if you review them.

E. Hire developers with experience in developing wedding planning apps

You should try to hire programmers that have earlier developed wedding apps. Such developers know how wedding planners use these apps to plan real weddings.

Experienced programmers should know about developing wedding inspiration apps. They should know how to implement different features concerning a wedding category. You need developers that know how to implement features like in-app purchases.

Hire experienced developers from DevTeam.Space. Our developers have experience and extensive knowledge of how to develop the best wedding planning apps. Avoid the risk of hiring freelance developers since you can’t really evaluate their relevant experience and they come with numerous drawbacks.

Ready to Develop a Wedding Planning App?

The global wedding services market size was valued at $160,587.40 million in 2020 and is expected to reach $414,285.70 million by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 4.8% from 2021 to 2030, according to the Allied Marketing Research report.

You can mark your share in this growing industry by launching innovative wedding planning software including a wedding website and an app.

However, developing such a software application that stands out in the market needs to be robust, secure, and feature-rich. This calls for exceptional software development skills using the latest tools and technologies.

If you, as a business CTO or any other management position, do not find such app development skills in your project team then we would advise you to partner with a reputed software development company. 

DevTeam.Space is one such company experienced in developing software solutions for a range of businesses via its field-expert software developers community.

You can get more information on how to partner with our mobile app developers for your wedding planning app project by sending us your product specification via this quick form.

One of our account managers will get back to you shortly to discuss further project details.

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