As Meghan and Prince Harry prepare to tie the knot, the mind boggles at the army of planners, primpers and Royal suppliers who will be on hand to ensure things run to perfection. But what about us mere mortals?

In the bad old days, planning a wedding was all about endless to-do lists, clunky Excel spreadsheets and fraught trips to John Lewis. These days, everything, and we mean EVERYTHING can be done from your phone.

From choosing your venue and picking a date to sending out invites and finding the music, in our comprehensive list of top apps for planning your wedding, all bases are covered – just be prepare to feel more wedded to your phone than your betrothed for the next few months or so.

FOR STYLE INSPIRATION – Pinterest
For some instant inspiration, there is no better place to start than Pinterest, where there’s a board for every bride whatever her style or budget. Find ideas for everything from hairstyles and dresses to table decoration and food, then create your own mood board and share it with the relevant people to add their input (yes, that includes your husband to be).

Download here.

FOR SHARING MOMENTS – Instagram
Where would a wedding in 2018 be without trusty Instagram and the joy of a well-chosen hashtag? Apart from a brilliant place to find #weddinginspo, your gal pals will naturally be sharing #embarassing pics from the #hendo. Meanwhile, every bride and groom needs a corny hashtag for big day, don’t they? #tomandvicgethitched

Download here.

FOR FINDING A DATE – Doodle
Help! You need to find a wedding date in peak wedding season that all the key players can come to. Don’t stress. Simply create a polling calendar in Doodle, then invite friends and family to choose which date and time suits them best. Doodle will aggregate the results and let you know which option works best for everyone.

Download here.

FOR SENDING INVITES - Paperless Post
This brilliant service takes all the pain (and a lot of the expense) out of save the dates and/or invites by doing everything online. Choose a beautiful card, send it out and pool all your RSVPs, dietary requirements and addresses in one place. You can even see who has opened the card but not responded and send them an easy (not shirty at all) reminder.

Download here.

FOR THE PERSONAL TOUCH – Etsy
For that personal touch without the hassle of actually hand-tying ribbons onto 250 place names YOURSELF, Etsy is your new best friend. A global marketplace for unique hand-crafted or vintage pieces, download the app to commission hand illustrated wedding stationery, calligraphy and all manner of hand crafted trinkets and treats to complete your wedding look.

Download here.

FOR PLANNING EVERYTHING – Hitched
Wedding admin is a walk in the park with this ‘does-everything’ personal wedding planner. The Hitched app grants you access to 6500 of the best wedding venues and suppliers in the UK, including some extra special Italian venues. Featuring easy-to-use planning tools from to do lists to budget breakdowns, you can also use the app to find advice and inspiration for all budgets and styles. How on earth did we ever plan weddings without it?

Download here.

FOR GUEST INFORMATION – The Appy Couple
There’s no need to send out an encyclopaedia with your invites with website and app, The Appy Couple, to hand. A brilliantly simple wedding website builder, simply download the app, choose a design and personalise it with your details before inviting guests to download it for free too. As well as covering all the logistics (hotels, maps, rsvp details etc), you can send emails and notifications via social media and ask guest to share images of the day.

Download here.

FOR WEDDING GIFTS – Prezola
Where to start? These days there are a million excellent options for wedding gift lists. Nosing to the top of the leader board, however, is Prezola https://prezola.com, which allows brides ad grooms to create an online ‘wishlist’ of items for weddings guests to buy and send remotely from brands such as The White Company, KitchenAid, Sofa.com and Graham & Green. For choice, flexibility and service, it’s a wedding no-brainer – and it recently raised £3 million to develop an app version of its site. Watch this space.

FOR WEDDING PLAY LISTS – Spotify
There’s no need to splash the cash on wedding music when you can be your own DJ with wonderful Spotify. Make and download any number of playlists to suit the various moments of the day – perhaps a jazz list for the drinks reception, some modern folk during dinner and some rock ‘n’ roll to get all generations up and dancing?

Download here.

FOR LIVE PHOTO SHARING - Wedding Photo Swap
Collect, share and swap all the photos taken at your wedding LIVE, as the event is happening. Ask friends and family to sign up to this brilliant app ahead of the wedding, hen and stag dos and send their photos and comments directly to the app in real time, with all pics saved in high resolution for you (and your guests) to print out in an album or download after the event.

Download here.

May 2018