Inspiring Pretty
You may have guessed from perusing our website that I love weddings. It is true….maybe too true.. As wonderful as weddings are, though, they can be a nightmare to plan. This is especially true if you are planning your own wedding. The orchestration of guests, food, decor, music and so much more turns a day of love into a production. We have provided a few resources before to DIY brides in the past {and we have A LOT more coming up soon}, but the time has come to update it with sources to help make your life easier.
This list is aimed at helping brides find inspiration and orchestrate theirs weddings in a tech-savvy and money-wise manner. Whether your wedding is big or small, in your home town or on another continent, I have found these to be the best websites to help plan your wedding.
Inspiration
Style Unveiled
Style Unveiled is a great website to help plan you wedding, because they offer style boards for many wedding elements. From wedding dresses to honeymoon spots, style boards from the site’s curators as well as other brides offer ideas for a planning bride. This is more useful than Pinterest for one reason: style boards give you the information that goes along with the photo. So, if you like a cake that you see, you can find the cake maker attributed on Style Unveiled. If you have ever tried to find the designer or style number of a wedding dress online and you only have a photo you saw on Pinterest, then you understand how helpful this is. Style Unveiled offers bridal inspiration and vendor information all in one spot.
Cloud Parade
Cloud Parade is similar to Style Unveiled, but while Style Unveiled in meant more for inspiration and leads on vendors, Cloud Parade is a site full of inspiration, which can be bought directly on the website. This means you cannot buy things where a vendor/consultation would be needed {such as a cake or music}, but nearly everything else is available for purchase. You can search by color, item and theme or use any combination of the three. This can be quite helpful depending what is most important to you in your wedding. If you want centerpieces, jewelry and favors and fit your colors or find ideas for a desert wedding that you can buy right there, Cloud Parade can help. You can also check out clouds that other users and curators have created and buy items from their clouds. It is a very neatly arranged marketplace that is designed in a way that is helpful to brides.
Wedding Gawker
Wedding Gawker is like Pinterest, but just for weddings. The wedding category of Pinterest is very wide and it is difficult to narrow down, because it only uses keywords rather than subcategories. Since Wedding Gawker is only about weddings, it is easy to search one category to find ideas, blogs and more to get inspiration for your wedding planning.
Style Me Pretty
There are several websites that showcase real weddings and they are definitely worth checking out when you are planning your wedding. I love Style Me Pretty, though, for its galleries. They offer tons of real wedding inspiration that is easy to sort. You can break down the photos by categories, tags and colors. That helps quite a bit when you are looking for wedding colors or trying to find out how others have tastefully had a backyard wedding.
Wedding Planning & Organization
Wedding Wire
We have discussed Wedding Wire in the past and for good reason. It offers many tools free of charge that other sites charge for. They have an extensive collection of beautiful and unique wedding website templates, which come with many great features that will help your guests. They also offer tools to manage your budget, guest list, vendor list and more. My personal favorite tool, which usually comes with a fee is the seating planner. You can build you own reception hall and seating plan for free with Wedding Wire. You truly can use this site as a command central over your wedding, if you so desire.
Wedding Site
This wonderful wedding planning site comes from across the pond, but it is friendly for U.S.-based brides as well. This site has most if you not all of the same features as Wedding Wire, including a seating planner. I love this website, because on it you can track all of your invites, responded/not responded, etc for all of the events of your wedding. You are also able to mass email all of your guests from your dashboard. They also give out lots of tips on wedding planning and wedding design on their blog.
Wedocracy
This site was built by a couple that planned their own wedding. They offer so many features, such each of your guests creating their own account when they RSVP. They can add and change their information on their own. It’s like a social network. With this account, they can arrange their travel and coordinate with other guests, so much of the stress is taken off your shoulders as the bride and groom. You can also create profiles for your vendors. In your to-do lists, you can assign tasks to guests or vendors along with a due date. So, coordination becomes a cinch. You can also track vendors, deposits and more. Of course, there is also a wedding website included. This is definitely a site fit to be wedding command central. However, it is not free, but it may be worth it to have so much headache taken off your shoulders.
The Plunge
Okay, this one is for the groom, but it very well may make the life of the bride easier as well. Here, the groom can keep track of his duties for the wedding, help plan the honeymoon and more. It is done all in manly flair, so he may enjoy perusing the website as well for advice.
Wedding Spot
Wedding Spot helps you search for wedding venues based on location, number of guests and/or budget. You can view photos, amenities, conditions of venues and more. You can get an accurate price for the venue by going through the price quote process for a venue. Vendors provide their pricing, so you can see what the wedding venue would cost for you based on event duration, rentals and more all without having to make an appointment or sit on phone. If you find a venue you like, you can send them your event details and they will get in touch with you already having all the necessary information. There are also exclusive offers on some venues through this website alone. This website takes the guesswork out of location-hunting. The only downside is that as of now, this service is only available in a few states.
The Weather Channel
Did you know that the Weather Channel can help you find an ideal time for your wedding based on average temperatures and precipitation of zip codes? Enter the zip code of your wedding location and you can view the average highs and lows of each month along with the average precipitation. It also tells you the warmest, coolest, wettest, most dry, cloudiest and most clear months of the year. It is similar to consulting an almanac. When you are planning your wedding a year or more in advance, you cannot know what the weather will bring, but this can provide an accurate estimate.
All Seated
If you want a seating chart that offers more tools than is available on Wedding Wire or the Wedding Site, then you can try this free service. It is chalk full of tools to make seating charts a cinch.With it, you can plan your seating to scale and update your vendors, venue manager, wedding planner and anyone else you would like to tell in a jiff, because it is hosted on a cloud server. You can import your guest list from social networks, your email account, an excel spreadsheet and more. You can manage guests’ RSVP’s to various events and filter them accordingly to facilitate the planning process. Tables are coded by color and rearranging guests and the placement of entire tables is a snap. You can also email your seating plan to others and print it off. There are more features of this wonderful site and it is one of the few free seat-planning websites.
Yapta
Whether you are planning your honeymoon or helping guests find airfare, Yapta can help you effortlessly save money. If you have not yet bought your airfare, search for a flight through Yapta. If they prices are out of your range, you can set a price drop alert and Yapta will alert you when the price falls at all. Don’t worry if you have already booked your airfare, you can still get money back if the price drops. Enter your booking info and Yapta will alert if you the price for the same flight drops at all. Yapta knows the ins and outs of airline bureaucracy and helps use it to your advantage. Policies vary by airline, but Yapta will alert you if you are eligible at any time for a refund. It is quite the helpful tool to keep the ever-climbing prices of airfare as low as possible.
Wedding Registries
Wanderable
Wanderable is registry that helps you pay for your honeymoon. You enter activities from your honeymoon such as car rentals, dance lessons or dinner for two and your guests can pay for the gift entirely or contribute money toward it. Adding from curated suggestions is free, but adding activities that are not curated by site managers has a 2.5% fee associated with it. Credit card fees also apply.
Honeyfund
Honeyfund allows you to create a money-only registry where your guests contribute their money to your desired gifts. This usually entails paying for a honeymoon, but it can also mean helping you put down a down payment on your new home together or anything else that comes with beginning a life together. Your registry is free to you and your guests to use. You can add features for a fee, though. Money received through Paypal and credit cards are also subject to their fees.
Upon Our Star
Upon Our Star follows the same concept of Honeyfund – you received money-only gifts as a contribution toward a honeymoon, home or otherwise. A difference between the two is found in the fact that Upon Our Star allows you to have a bank account set up for your registry. It is also free to use minus the processing fees as seen in other registries.
Zola
Zola is a free, all-around gift registry where you can register for items as well as money-gifts. You can request items from a store with a URL to the product or by scanning the barcode of a product with your phone while you are in the store. You can also allow guests to contribute toward an item rather than asking them to pay for something completely. You have the option of deciding when your gifts will be shipped to you. Or, if you change your mind, you may also convert the money used to buy those gifts into credits and choose something else. The downside of this registry service is that they do not have relationships with all of the stores you may want to have on your registry. As in other gift registry websites, credit card fees apply.
Simple Registry
Simple Registry allows you to register for any item from any store as well as money-gifts. You can add any item through URL links or by scanning a barcode with your phone. This includes tangible items such as a blender or camera as well non-tangible gifts such as museum passes for your honeymoon or a charity donation. You receive your gifts in the form of cash, so you can buy the items when you want and where you want. Credit card fees and website fees apply totaling 5% of your overall gifts received.
Others
Check out more alternative gift registry ideas here.
Wedding Attire – The Bride
Pre-Owned Wedding Dresses
This website is just what it sounds like. It is a marketplace where brides sell their new and used wedding dresses to other brides. Dresses designers, styles and prices are available in a wide range to suit most brides. You can filter the dresses by location, how many times the dress has been used and more. If you are hoping to nab a designer wedding dress for less, be sure to give this website a browse.
Borrowing Magnolia
Suit and tuxedo rentals are common for weddings, but what about wedding dress rentals? Borrowing Magnolia offers designer wedding dresses for both rental and purchase. Due to the fact that these dresses are high end, styles only come in certain sizes and selection depends on availability. If you do not want to spend several thousands on a designer, but still want the look, this may be your best option.
Happily Ever Borrowed
Happily Ever Borrowed is a website for designer bridal accessory rentals. They offer everything from sashes and jewelry to tiaras and clutches. Minor wear and damage is okay and free of charge. Returns are also a snap with pre-paid postage that arrives with your order. If you are not sure what you want, you can try the “send before you spend” option. With this, you choose three to try on for $50. You also receive a $25 gift card to be used toward your future rental.
Wedding Attire – Everyone Else
Weddington Way
Weddington Way allows you plan your bridesmaids outfits with your girls wherever they are through an online showroom. On Weddington Way, you can create an online showroom of bridesmaids dresses for your bridesmaids to choose from or you can collaborate on dress ideas. Dresses can be filtered based on color, cut, body shape, fabric, shipping time, return policy and more. You can also order a free swatch, so your dress colors to ensure that your dresses will not be a surprise when they arrive. Weddington Way has a large collection of styles and colors, so you are almost guaranteed to find something you and your bridesmaids will love. They also just expanded into dress rentals, but at the moment, selection is limited to six styles and six colors.
Little Borrowed Dress
Little Borrowed Dress is exactly what it sounds like. It is a dress rental service that currently offers twelve different styles of bridesmaid dresses in eighteen different colors. Like Weddington Way, you can order a color swatch to help you pair your wedding colors with the dress colors. Dresses should be ordered three months in advance of the wedding and will arrive two weeks before the wedding date. They also come with a pre-paid UPS envelope for an easy return. Or, if your bridesmaids want to buy the dress, they have that option as well.
Vow to be Chic
Vow to be Chic offers of designer bridesmaid dresses and “little white dresses” for the bride. This website is unique, because it offers a “try on” service. You can choose to buy or rent a dress. If you rent a dress, you get to try it on first. This mean that you receive the dress you want in two sizes. You keep the size you want and return the other in a pre-paid envelope that comes with the “try on” box. If you are not sure which dress you want, you can choose the “try on only” service, which means that you receive a dress in two sizes for $19.99. Once you decide on a dress, this fee is applied toward the purchase or rental of your gown. I love this website, because it accommodates the choosiness of brides and bridesmaids without penalizing you with red tape and shipping costs.
Rent the Runway
You may have used Rent the Runway before for other special occasions, but they also offer simpler wedding dresses as well as bridesmaid dresses and accessories. Like other rentals, you can keep them for four or eight days before returning them.
Light in the Box
Light in the Box makes it possible to get wedding dresses, bridesmaids dresses, suits and more made to your exact measurements for cheap. Simply choose from thousands of styles and colors and submit your measurements with your order. Surprisingly, dresses and suits from Light in the Box are often the same price or cheaper than rentals. This option also saves you the hassle of exchanges, returns and alterations.
Name Changes
Miss Now Mrs.
Changing your name can be a headache, but technology can help. Miss Now Mrs. takes the stress out of it by asking you some simple questions and directing you to the appropriate forms. With their software, you take the guesswork out of changing your name for your Social Security Number, US passport, driver’s license, the postal service and voter registration forms. They also notify your bank, credit cards, medical providers, insurance companies and more. This service is also only about $30.
Marriage Name Change
This offers almost exactly everything that the aforementioned website offers, except it also notifies every organization you are involved with of your name change well. It is also only about $30.
I’m a Mrs.
This website is pretty much like the previous two, except that it promises that it can change your name for every single organization you are involved with, whether they have a form for it or not. That is quite the claim and some tremendous customer service. It is also $30.
Do you know of any great wedding websites to help plan your wedding? If you do, we want to know. Tell us below!
25+ of the Best Wedding Websites to Help Plan Your Wedding