TLDR (Summary)
The best all-in-one platform for wedding planners is Plutio ($19/month).
Plutio replaces separate CRM, proposal, contract, project management, and invoicing tools with one connected platform. When a couple signs a wedding planning proposal, the project is created with milestones for every phase of the planning process. Vendor details, client communication, contracts, and payment schedules all connect to the same wedding project.
According to The Wedding Planner Institute, the average wedding involves 14 vendors and full-service planning requires 200-400+ hours per event, with the majority of that time going to coordination, not creative work.
Explore the Freelancer Magazine for in-depth guides on project management, pricing, proposals, and more.
What tools do wedding planners typically use?
Wedding planners build their operations across 5-7 different tools because event-specific platforms like Aisle Planner handle some planning tasks but don't include invoicing or full business management features, while general business tools handle invoicing and contracts but were not designed for multi-vendor, multi-milestone event coordination.
A typical wedding planner tool stack:
- Aisle Planner for timelines, checklists, and client collaboration ($30-70/month)
- HoneyBook for proposals, contracts, and invoicing ($19-79/month)
- Google Sheets or Airtable for vendor tracking, budget management, and guest counts
- Trello or Asana for task management across multiple weddings
- Email and WhatsApp for client and vendor communication
- QuickBooks for accounting and financial tracking ($30/month)
The combined cost reaches $79-180/month, and none of these tools share data. Vendor details entered in Aisle Planner do not appear in HoneyBook. Timeline updates in Trello do not reflect in the budget spreadsheet.
Why wedding planning software is different
Wedding planning has a fundamentally different project structure than other service businesses. Each wedding is a 6-18 month project with dozens of milestones, 10-14 external vendors who each need their own coordination, a fixed deadline that cannot move, and a client who is emotionally invested in every detail. One missed vendor payment or forgotten timeline update can cascade into a crisis on the wedding day.
The operational challenge is not individual task management but cross-vendor coordination. When the florist's delivery time changes, the setup timeline shifts, which affects when the photographer arrives, which changes when the coordinator needs to be on-site. In a connected system, one update ripples through the entire timeline. In disconnected tools, the planner manually updates 4-5 different documents and hopes nothing gets missed.
Why wedding planners need an all-in-one platform
Wedding planners managing 8-15 weddings per year are coordinating 100+ vendor relationships, 100+ milestone deadlines, and thousands of detail decisions, all while being the single point of contact for couples who expect perfection.
At 3 weddings per year, spreadsheets and email work. At 10+, the coordination time between tools becomes the bottleneck, not the planning itself.
The vendor coordination challenge
Each wedding involves an average of 14 vendors: venue, catering, photography, videography, florist, DJ, officiant, cake, hair and makeup, stationery, rentals, lighting, transportation, and coordination staff. Each vendor has their own contract, deposit schedule, and timeline requirements. When vendor details live in spreadsheets, one changed delivery time means finding and updating the right cell across multiple documents.
The parallel timeline problem
Managing 8 weddings simultaneously means 8 parallel timelines, each at a different planning stage. One wedding is in the design phase, another is 3 weeks from the event, and a third has a vendor contract expiring tomorrow. When timelines live in separate tools, the weekly prioritization review takes an hour just to compile status across all events.
The client communication demand
Couples planning their wedding send more messages than almost any other client type. Questions about centerpiece options, vendor meal counts, timeline adjustments, and guest list changes come in daily. When communication happens through email, text, and multiple app notifications, messages get lost and response times suffer.
An all-in-one platform gives wedding planners one place to check vendor status, timeline progress, client messages, and payment schedules across all active weddings.
Key features wedding planners need
The features that matter for wedding planners connect client onboarding with planning milestones, vendor coordination, and billing in one continuous project flow.
How does Plutio handle wedding proposals and packages?
Wedding planning proposals need to present service tiers clearly, from day-of coordination to full-service planning.
- Package comparison: Present month-of coordination, partial planning, and full-service planning side by side. Each package lists included services, meetings, hours of on-site coordination, and pricing.
- Contract embedded: Planning agreement, cancellation terms, payment schedule, and scope of services in the same document. The couple reviews everything and signs once.
- Payment milestones: Retainer at signing, second payment at 6 months, third at 3 months, final payment 30 days before the wedding. Each payment triggers automatically on schedule.
- Add-on services: Rehearsal dinner coordination, welcome party planning, and post-wedding brunch management as optional line items the couple can select.
When the couple signs, Plutio creates the wedding project with every milestone, vendor category, and payment date already in place. No manual project setup after each booking.
See how proposals work in Plutio
How does Plutio handle wedding timelines and milestones?
A wedding timeline has 50-100+ milestones spread across 6-18 months, and one missed deadline compounds as the wedding day approaches.
- Milestone tracking: Every planning phase has tasks: venue signed, catering tasting completed, floral proposal approved, invitation proofs reviewed. Tasks connect to deadlines, vendor contacts, and budget line items.
- Timeline views: See the full wedding timeline as a Gantt-style view. Identify which tasks are on track, which are overdue, and which are coming up next.
- Dependency chains: The caterer needs the final guest count 2 weeks before the event. The guest count depends on RSVPs. The RSVP deadline depends on when invitations were mailed. Dependencies prevent tasks from being marked complete before prerequisites are met.
- Multi-wedding dashboard: See all active weddings in one view. Which events are coming up in the next 30 days? Which have overdue vendor payments? Which need client decisions this week?
See how project timelines work in Plutio
How does Plutio handle vendor tracking?
Each wedding involves coordinating with 10-14 vendors, each with their own contract terms and payment schedules.
- Vendor contacts: Store vendor details (name, phone, email, service type) as contacts linked to each wedding project. Open the wedding and see every vendor at a glance.
- Vendor contracts: Attach vendor contracts and agreements to the wedding project. When a question about the florist's delivery time comes up, the contract is one click away.
- Payment tracking: Track vendor deposits, balance due dates, and final payments. Get reminders when vendor payments are approaching so nothing gets missed.
- Communication history: Messages and notes about each vendor stay in the project record. When a question about the DJ's confirmed setup time comes up, the answer is in the project, not buried in email.
How does Plutio handle invoicing for wedding planners?
Wedding planner billing involves retainers, milestone payments over 6-18 months, and variable add-on fees.
- Milestone payments: Payment schedule defined at proposal acceptance. Retainer at signing, progress payments at defined milestones, final balance 30 days before the event.
- Automatic reminders: Clients receive payment reminders as each milestone approaches. No manual chasing for the 6-month payment.
- Add-on invoicing: When a couple adds rehearsal dinner coordination mid-planning, create an additional invoice that ties back to the same wedding project.
- Payment links: Clients pay through Stripe, PayPal, or Square directly from the invoice or client portal.
How much can wedding planners save by switching to Plutio?
Wedding planners typically spend more on software than most service professionals because vendor coordination and long project timelines require multiple specialized tools.
What do wedding planners typically spend on software?
A common wedding planner tool stack:
- Aisle Planner: $30-70/month for planning tools and client collaboration
- HoneyBook: $19-79/month for proposals, contracts, and invoicing
- QuickBooks: $30/month for accounting
- Canva Pro: $13/month for design and presentations
- Google Workspace: $7/month for email and storage
Total: $99-199/month on tools that do not share vendor data, timeline updates, or client communication.
What is the time cost of disconnected planning tools?
The larger cost is the coordination time between tools:
- Vendor updates: 30-60 minutes per wedding per week updating vendor status across spreadsheets and project boards
- Client updates: 1-2 hours per week compiling status updates from different tools to send to couples
- Payment tracking: 1-2 hours per month reconciling vendor payments and client installments across tools
- Timeline management: 2-3 hours per week adjusting timelines across multiple active weddings
At $150/hour, 5 hours of weekly tool coordination costs $39,000/year in lost planning capacity.
What does Plutio cost for wedding planners?
- Core: $19/month - Complete wedding management with proposals, contracts, project timelines, client portals, invoicing, and vendor tracking included
- Pro: $49/month - Unlimited clients, 30 contributors, advanced permissions, priority support
- Max: $199/month - Unlimited team, white-label with custom domain, single sign-on
The subscription savings are $50-180/month, and connected vendor tracking, automated payment reminders, and client portal self-service recover hours per week for planning work.
The ROI calculation for wedding planners
- Tool consolidation: Replacing Aisle Planner ($30-70/month), HoneyBook ($19-79/month), and QuickBooks ($30/month) with one $19/month subscription saves $60-160/month in software costs alone
- Time recovery: Connected vendor tracking, automated milestone payments, and client portal self-service recover 5+ hours weekly that currently go to manual coordination between disconnected tools
- Client experience: Couples who access branded portals with their planning timeline, vendor confirmations, and payment schedule send fewer check-in messages and refer more confidently to friends planning their own weddings
If tool consolidation saves $100/month and time recovery adds even one more wedding per year ($5,000-15,000), the return on a $19/month subscription far exceeds the cost.
Why wedding planners choose Plutio over fragmented tools
When proposals, timelines, vendor coordination, and invoicing connect in one platform, the planner spends less time managing tools and more time creating weddings. Here is what the connected workflow looks like.
Each additional wedding adds vendor coordination, client communication, and timeline management. Connected software handles that complexity.
The Plutio difference for wedding planning
- Proposal → Project: When a couple signs the planning proposal, the wedding project is created with every milestone and vendor category pre-configured. No manual setup.
- Timeline → Vendors: Vendor tasks connect to the wedding timeline. When the florist confirms delivery at 2pm, the setup task and photography task adjust accordingly.
- Portal → Couple: The couple logs into a branded portal to see their planning timeline, approved vendors, upcoming decisions, and payment schedule. No status update emails needed.
- Milestones → Payments: When the 6-month milestone arrives, the payment reminder sends automatically. The couple pays through the portal and the project ledger updates.
Multi-wedding management
Wedding planners managing 8-15 events need a dashboard showing all active weddings at once: upcoming events, outstanding vendor payments, and pending client decisions. Plutio's dashboard gives that visibility without opening each project individually.
Branded client experience
Couples interact with your planning business through a branded portal with your logo, colors, and domain. The experience positions your business as a high-end planning firm, not a collection of consumer apps.
Wedding planners who move to a connected platform take on more weddings per year because the coordination time per event drops significantly when timelines, vendors, and payments all live in one system.
For detailed tool comparisons, see our comparison hub or alternatives pages.
How to set up Plutio for your wedding planning business
Setting up Plutio for wedding planning takes 3-4 hours, with the most important step being project template creation that covers the full wedding timeline.
Step 1: Configure your brand (30 mins)
Upload your business logo, set brand colors, and add your business details. Connect Stripe or PayPal for client payments. Set your custom domain on the Max plan for a fully branded client experience.
Step 2: Build your wedding project template (1-2 hours)
Create a master wedding project template with all standard milestones:
- Pre-planning phase: Initial consultation, venue tours, vendor research, budget planning.
- Design phase: Color palette, floral design, stationery, table settings, lighting.
- Vendor booking phase: Contracts with each vendor category, deposit tracking, tastings.
- Detail phase: Guest list management, seating chart, day-of timeline, rehearsal planning.
- Final countdown: Final vendor confirmations, payment balances, emergency contacts, setup logistics.
Step 3: Build proposal templates (1 hour)
Create proposal templates for each service level you offer: day-of coordination, partial planning, and full-service planning. Include contract terms, payment milestones, and add-on options in each template.
Step 4: Connect integrations (20 mins)
Sync Google Calendar or Outlook for scheduling meetings and site visits. Connect Stripe or PayPal for payments. Link QuickBooks or Xero for accounting. Test each connection.
Step 5: Start your next wedding in Plutio
Apply the project template to your next booking. Let the milestone structure guide the planning process. Refine the template based on what you learn from the first real wedding managed in Plutio.
Common setup mistakes to avoid
- Over-customizing templates before real use: Build the core wedding template with standard milestones and vendor categories. Refine after 2-3 actual weddings.
- Migrating all historical data: Import only active couples and upcoming weddings. Past weddings stay in the old system.
- Not testing the couple portal: Walk through the timeline, vendor list, documents, and payment schedule as a test client before going live.
Build the wedding project template with the milestones and vendor categories you use for every event. Custom additions can be made per-wedding, but the core structure should cover 80% of your standard planning process.
Organizing your wedding planning workflows
Organized planning workflows are what separate wedding planners who handle 8 events per year from those who manage 15+ without burning out.
Organize by planning phase
- 12+ months out: Venue selection, budget framework, core vendor research, save-the-dates.
- 9-12 months: Vendor booking, catering tasting, floral design, photography style selection.
- 6-9 months: Invitations, guest list finalization, attire fittings, entertainment booking.
- 3-6 months: Menu finalization, seating chart draft, rehearsal planning, transportation coordination.
- Final month: Final confirmations, payment balances, emergency contacts, detailed day-of timeline, packing lists.
Organize by vendor category
- Venue + Catering: Often bundled. Contract, deposit, tasting dates, final count deadline, and setup logistics.
- Creative vendors: Photographer, videographer, florist, stationer. Design consultations, proof approvals, and delivery coordination.
- Entertainment + Ceremony: DJ/band, officiant, musicians. Timeline coordination for ceremony, cocktail hour, and reception.
- Logistics: Rentals, lighting, transportation, day-of staff. Setup times, delivery windows, and breakdown schedules.
Automation rules for wedding planning
- Proposal accepted → wedding project created with full milestone structure.
- Payment milestone reached → automatic invoice sent to couple.
- Vendor contract uploaded → reminder set for deposit due date.
- 30 days before wedding → final confirmation checklist activated.
The master wedding template handles the structure. Per-wedding customization adds the unique details that make each event personal.
What does a client portal look like for wedding planning?
Without a portal, couples get visibility through weekly email updates, shared Google Drive folders, and text messages, each creating another channel for the planner to manage.
What couples see in their portal
Couples log into your branded portal at yourplanningfirm.com (your custom domain on the Max plan) and see their wedding project from the client perspective:
- Planning timeline: Visual overview of every phase with progress indicators. Couples see what has been completed, what is in progress, and what is coming up next.
- Vendor list: Confirmed vendors with contact information, service details, and contract status. Couples can reference vendor details without asking the planner.
- Decision queue: Items that need the couple's input: venue meal selection, floral arrangement choices, seating chart approval. Decisions are made through the portal, not scattered email threads.
- Documents: Signed planning agreement, vendor contracts (when shared), design boards, floor plans, and day-of timeline. Everything accessible from one location.
- Payments: Payment schedule showing completed and upcoming installments with "Pay Now" buttons. Couples manage payments without phone calls to the planner.
Why portals matter for wedding planners
Wedding planning is a luxury purchase. Couples paying $8,000-15,000+ expect a premium experience from the first interaction. Most planning tools let you upload a logo - Plutio goes further: your own domain (yourplanningfirm.com), your logo, your colors, your fonts. Zero third-party branding visible anywhere. No "Powered by HoneyBook" in the footer. No third-party login screen. Couples interact with what looks and feels like your firm's custom-built planning platform.
When couples check timelines, approve vendor selections, and pay milestones through a portal that carries your brand exclusively, the planner gets fewer "just checking in" messages - and the experience reinforces the premium positioning that justifies premium fees.
Client portals let couples check timelines, approve vendor selections, and view invoices under your brand, so planning stays transparent without constant email updates.
How to migrate to Plutio from Aisle Planner or HoneyBook
Migration for wedding planners takes 4-5 hours of active work. The best time to switch is between wedding seasons or when current active weddings are past the heavy planning phase.
Step 1: Export from current tools
Export your client contact list from HoneyBook or your CRM. Download any vendor spreadsheets from Google Sheets or Airtable. Save proposal and contract templates from your current system.
Step 2: Build the wedding project template (2 hours)
Create your master wedding project template with milestones, vendor categories, and task structures. Build it from your actual planning process, not from scratch.
Step 3: Build proposal templates (1 hour)
Recreate your service packages as proposal templates in Plutio. Include contract terms, payment milestones, and add-on options. Test the proposal-to-project flow to make sure the acceptance triggers create the right project structure.
Step 4: Set up integrations (30 mins)
Connect Stripe or PayPal for payments. Sync your calendar. Link accounting software. Test each integration with a sample transaction.
Step 5: Use Plutio for new bookings
Every new couple goes through Plutio from the proposal stage forward. Active weddings already past the proposal stage can stay in the current system until the event completes.
Step 6: Phase out old subscriptions
Once all active weddings from the old system are completed, cancel Aisle Planner, HoneyBook, or whichever tools Plutio replaces.
Common migration pitfalls
- Switching mid-wedding: A wedding 3 months away should not be migrated. Keep in-progress events on the current tools.
- Rushing the template: The project template needs to be thorough. Every wedding builds on it.
- Not testing the proposal flow: Verify project creation, payment schedule, and portal all work before sending to a real couple.
Start with new bookings in Plutio, let active weddings finish in the old system, and invest time in a thorough wedding project template that becomes the foundation for every future event.
