If you are planning your wedding and have an iPhone or iPad, you have some great tools available to help with the process!  Of course all the old standards have apps (hello to The Knot, Brides and Vera Wang) but here are a few of my favorite apps you might not have heard of that might useful to you during planning and even on the wedding day itself:

Evernote - Evernote is an app which you can access on your phone, iPad, internet and desktop that will help keep you organized – create notebooks with your to do list, vendor contact info, even notes about guest seating.  Everything syncs across platforms and is completely mobile.  I adore Evernote and use it in my personal life as well as for my business.

Flowerwheel – So often brides and grooms come to me with no idea of what types of flowers they like, let alone what they want for their wedding!  Or they bring in a picture of a gorgeous bouquet but only like one or two of the flowers – the listing names all the flowers but they don’t know which flower is which!  Flowerwheel is a great visual of all different kinds of flowers sortable by date and color.  Be warned, there is some frustration in that the flowers aren’t named until you click on them and it isn’t searchable by name but overall this is a great tool.  I use this app in client meetings quite often!

Pinterest – Okay so you have probably heard of Pinterest but did you know that it is now available to anyone with no invitation needed?   Pinterest is basically the ultimate bulletin board and a HUGE help in wedding planning.  They just added an iPad specific app that is gorgeous – now you can pin from anywhere!  Make group boards with your bridal party to pin attire ideas, DIY projects (that you’ll likely never do but you want to save anyway. ), and decor ideas.  This app is also AMAZING for bringing your ideas to meetings with your florist, rental company, designer, planner, etc – being able to show them a picture rather than trying to describe things you love is so very helpful!!!

WineStein Pro – If you love good food and wine, you know how much the right pairings can enhance a meal.  Creating those pairings can be tricky so unless you have a sommelier in your bridal party, this app can help you decide what wine to serve with the first meal of your married life.

 AppyCouple – AppyCouple is still in beta but you can request an invitation.  AppyCouple is basically a wedding website in the form of an app!  You set up the site, your guests download the free app and your guests can access info about your bridal party, your proposal story, directions to your ceremony and reception, even your registries.  You’ll get a matching online website for those guest without a smartphone.  It is a great way to keep your guests informed!

Wedding Party – Cameras on phones are so common nowadays, your guests are bound to capture some fun moments but how do you gather all those pictures for yourself?  Sure some will be on Facebook spread among your friend’s pages but they won’t be gathered in one  spot unless you put in a considerable amount of work, right?  Not with this app!  Wedding guests download the app and when they take a picture, it gets downloaded to a central album for you and you can create a Facebook album with a click.

While Wedding Party is free, there are a couple of apps that offer similar services for a fee that you might want to look at as well – these include Wedding Snap and Photo Opp.

How to Tie a Tie – here’s one to slip onto his iPhone in case his wedding day jitters get the most of him and he forgets how to tie a Windsor knot or that bow tie isn’t pre-tied.  The pro version also has a section on different folds for pocket squares – not going to lie, I use this app pretty much every wedding.

While all these apps are for the iPhone and/or iPad, many of them have Android counterparts as well.  Any apps that you love that I missed?  Feel free to let me know!

This past weekend, Kasey from Bliss and I took a roadtrip to Cincinnati and had the pleasure of coordinating a fellow planner’s wedding!  Alison from Aviva Events married her longtime love, Seth at the Contemporary Arts Center.  It was a beautiful day and I was honored to be a part of it – I will try to borrow some pictures and post them for soon.

One of my favorite discoveries from the day was the prelude music which was provided by the outstanding DJ Toad.  Seriously, he was amazing – the dance floor wasn’t empty for a second all night.  And he travels to Columbus.  Just saying.

If you weren’t listening very, very closely to the prelude music, you likely would not have noticed it wasn’t your usual music.  There was no Canon in D, Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring or Trumpet Voluntary.  There was ‘Nightswimming’ by REM and ‘Today’ by Smashing Pumpkins but I am willing to bet that most of the guests didn’t realize they were listening to instrumental versions of those songs.

A group called the Vitamin String Quartet has taken songs from just about anyone you can think of – from 311 to Adele to Elton John to Metallica to Radiohead to The Cure to Van Morrison – and done instrumental versions.  If you have always wanted to walk down the aisle to ‘Like a Prayer’ or ‘Jane Says’ but didn’t want your parents to flip out and grandma to have a heart attack, look no further!  Vitamin String Quartet has you covered.

A quick search iTunes produces literally thousands of covers of songs available – if you aren’t a classical fan or are looking for an interesting alternative to the traditional prelude and processional music, you must check out Vitamin String Quartet!

It seems that one of the most anxiety inducing meetings that my couples have is the floral appointment!  So often they have pulled pictures of flowers they like but don’t know what those flowers are or if they are available in their wedding colors.  I stumbled on a great site with a very nice, comprehensive listing of flowers by color!

With 41 different colors plus bi-color flowers, you are sure to find flowers that will suit your vision and match perfectly!