Wedding tools make planning easier

Ensuring an event goes on with minimal hiccups takes patience and thorough planning. This is especially true for weddings, when many elements must merge together for a memorable day. Today’s couples have a bevy of new resources at their disposal to facilitate wedding planning.

The internet makes vetting vendors and reading reviews that much easier, but wedding-related apps also can simplify wedding planning. The following are some top picks as culled by Wedding Shoppe, Inc., The Knot and Lifehacker.

• Wedding Spot: Couples can search for their ideal wedding venue based on location, budget, styles, and capacity. The website enables users to plan their ideal weddings and get cost estimates based on guest list and options. Users also can access discounts and exclusive deals.

• Wedding LookBook: This app enables couples to browse through thousands of dresses, accessories, jewelry, and much more. The app will help customers find products in their area.

• Shutterfly: This photo, invitation and image-sharing tool can be an inexpensive place to create save-the-date stationery, invitations, and photo memory books.

• Appy Couple: This app and website helps couples manage their budgets, timelines, wedding parties, and seating charts, while also allowing them to share photos. There is a free version and basic packages that allow access to more features.

• iWedding Deluxe: In addition to managing timelines, to-do lists and vendors, this app offers inspiration ideas for gowns, manages and tracks gifts, and offers first dance suggestions from iTunes. However, it is only available to iPhone users.

• AllSeated: This tool can help couples figure out seating arrangements by creating 3D floor plans of the event, and couples can pull contacts from email and social networks to establish a guest list. If floor plans are unavailable in their database, they can be drawn.

• The Knot’s Marketplace: With the click of a button, couples can search for wedding vendors in all different categories, read reviews, and directly connect with those businesses.

• HitchSwitch: Brides or grooms who may be changing their names can do so in one convenient place. Three different packages cater to various name-changing needs.

• Vistaprint: These stationery specialists offer an array of services, from cards to invitations to personalized envelopes. Once a design is chosen, Vistaprint will offer add-on suggestions for coordinating items, helping to create a cohesive look for the festivities.

Wedding websites, apps and more can streamline wedding planning.