We’ll walk you through the steps of online wedding planning, highlighting all of Zola’s incredibly easy and intuitive online wedding planning tools that’ll make planning for the big day more fun and less frustrating.
Last updated February 5, 2024
It’s a universally acknowledged truth that the wedding planning process is a lot of work. With a wedding checklist as long as your arm it’s not always obvious where and how to even begin. Thankfully, this is the digital age, in which we can do almost anything from our smartphones. Gone are the days of wedding planning that require a binder full of wedding inspiration print-outs and a million sit-down meetings for the bride and groom. But what are the best websites and tools out there to facilitate your online wedding planning? Answer: Zola.
In this guide on how to plan a wedding, we’ll walk you through the steps of online wedding planning—whether you’re planning a traditional wedding or a destination wedding. From organizing a seating chart to setting a realistic wedding budget, you’ll be armed with all the knowledge to plan your dream wedding. Grab your phone or laptop and let’s get planning.
After getting engaged, you and your partner need to get hooked up with all the right tools and services to make your online wedding planning as easy as possible. Set up a Zola account to:
Then set up other online accounts to help with your planning:
If you haven’t done so already, it’s time to start thinking about a wedding date.
See our guide for How To Set A Wedding Date
Now that you’re knowledgeable about how to use the internet to plan your wedding, it’s time to make your wedding a part of the internet.
See our guide for How To Create A Wedding Website
It’s time for what most people think is a fun step in wedding planning: setting up your Zola wedding registry. Not sure what a registry is? Not a problem—read up on What Is A Wedding Registry.
See our guide for Essentials To Put On Your Wedding Registry
Setting your wedding budget isn’t fun as a bride and groom, but it will make your life easier as you get further into planning your wedding. Plus, a realistic wedding budget helps you avoid overspending money, as well as help you outline ways to save.
See our guide for How To Set Your Wedding Budget
Now for a little fun after the budget talk: it’s time to browse ideas and wedding inspiration.
After browsing and favoriting Zola’s real weddings, you should begin to get a sense of your ideal wedding style. This will inform everything about your event, from food and beverage to deco and even your wedding stationery. The next step in turning your dream wedding into reality is to find your wedding venue.
See our guide for How To Choose A Wedding Venue
Once you have a venue contracted signed, then your online wedding planning timeline really kicks in.
Don't have a Zola account? See our Wedding Planning To-Do Checklist
Okay, the wedding is shaping up. Now it’s time to set your guest list.
See our guide on How To Make A Wedding Guest List
The guest list is set, so start spreading the news!
See our Guide To Wedding Save The Dates
While you probably have been researching and selecting important vendors throughout this whole process, here’s the point in your online wedding planning journey where you need to shore up your wedding vendor list.
Head to Zola’s vendor directory to search for all the key professionals who will actually pull off this incredible soirée you’re planning. Search by wedding vendor type, then browse through the vendor listings to find images, package descriptions, pricing info, reviews, and real wedding examples (when available). In general order of importance/urgency, here are the kinds of vendors you should be researching and booking:
Inquire with vendors about pricing and availability on your wedding date.
Meet in person with your favorite vendors that meet your criteria and seem like a good fit.
Secure their services by signing contracts and paying deposits when required.
At this point, invitations should be mailed to all the same individuals who received a save the date card. If you opted for Zola wedding invitations, this to-do list item is simple.
Pro Tip: Once the invites are in your hands, you’re ready to head to the post office. Since wedding invitations can easily rip or tear in the post office’s machinery thanks to being bulkier than most mail, be sure to ask the postal workers to cancel your invitations (USPS lingo for marking postage as used) with a hand stamp.
Need help with the etiquette and wording your invitations? We’ve got you. See our links to related articles below:
How To Address Wedding Invitations
How To Word Wedding Invitations
See our Guide To Wedding RSVPs
Congrats—you made it! Wedding day has arrived. You’ve successfully planned your wedding online like a champ without the help of a professional wedding planner and now you can simply enjoy yourself. Here are a few things to make sure you do on the big day to make it relaxing:
After some chill time, whether that’s by taking a mini-moon, a honeymoon, or just a day after the wedding to unwind, start thanking your friends and family for all those amazing gifts they bought you on your Zola registry. If you opted for Zola thank you cards to match your invitation suite, this task will be quick and easy.
Need help crafting messages to show your gratitude? See links to related articles below:
How To Write Wedding Thank You Cards
How To Word Wedding Thank You Cards
Look at that: You’re basically a professional wedding planner (as long as you have Zola in your back pocket).
Don’t miss a wedding planning detail with our complete, expert-crafted wedding checklist and timeline. Free, printable version inside!
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