ultimate wedding planner for ipad review
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With all of the things that brides need to organize, it is easy to lose track of things, like budgets, schedules, and appointments. To get organized, many purchase a wedding planner, mainly in print format, so that, at any moment, every detail of the wedding plans will be at arms reach. With the increasing popularity of tablets, it is quite natural for wedding planners to move into digital format.
Going digital, of course, has it’s advantages. It’s much more portable, because paper planners tend to accumulate all kinds of papers in between, making carrying it around an exercise of keeping everything in it’s place. Information is also more quickly accessible, with the ability to categorize and search for things. Certainly, if you own a tablet, digital wedding planners are worth looking into.
The question is… which one? A quick look in the app store yields several options. The option I’ll present to you is 2Wedding’s Ultimate Wedding Planner, an iPad app that is currently free until January 31st, 2012.
The Ultimate Wedding Planner is divided into four main sections:
- 2Mag
Information, inspiration, and advice on weddings presented in a magazine format. This section also provides help on how to use the app - 2Worksheets
The actual planner section of the app. This is the section that we’ll spend the rest of our time on. - 2Day
Information aggregated from a wedding blog; this section provides current events and inspiration as it is published - Gown Search
Provides a facility to browse wedding gowns and filter them by brand, body type, and budget
2Worksheets
This section is organized into several worksheet types to the left and the actual worksheet itself to the right. The interface is quite intuitive and responsive so exploring the interface is easy to do, something I recommend you do so that you familiarize yourself with what this app can do.
What struck me about this app is its simplicity. The workshop categories to the left are fixed and cannot be added to, changed, or modified. If you wanted to categorize something differently, that won’t be possible. For example, the ‘Photographer’ and ‘Videographer’ are separate worksheet categories but the worksheets themselves are identical; a case could be made for them to be unified under a ‘Media’ category. This sort of simplicity isn’t necessarily a drawback, however, because the categories are well thought out and will allow you to have focused discussions with key vendors for your day.
Another interesting feature is the send to email function, simply marked as a small button with a box in the top right corner. This button takes the contents of any of the worksheets and places it in an email. This should prove handy for sharing information with your fiance, wedding planner, wedding coordinator, or your bridal party.
Let’s take a quick tour around the categories…
Our wedding worksheet
This first worksheet allows you to enter the most basic information about your wedding, — who you are, when your wedding date is, the names of your people in your wedding party, your priorities, and a quick place to enter and categorize all those wonderful wedding ideas you have floating in your head.
Once you’ve entered your wedding date, it even has a handy counter that tells you how many days until your wedding!
This countdown is actually quite helpful, because it provides a visual reminder on how many days you have left to get everything done. This leads us to the second worksheet category:
Wedding countdown
This section has a list of things to do categorized into the following timeframes:
- 12-18 months before the wedding
- 9-12 months before the wedding
- 6-9 months before the wedding
- 3-6 months before the wedding
- 2 months before the wedding
- 1 week before the wedding
- the Big Day!
Within each timeframe is a list of things that are suggested to be done. Unfortunately, you can’t add/change/remove any things on the list, but you can check off the ones that are there so you can make sure you have at least those items covered off.
Budget Calculator
This section allows you to categorize your budget and give you a total by category and a grand total for the entire wedding. Again, there is no way to make any changes to the categories or subcategories. Of course, being a photographer, I had to see how we are categorized. I was a little confused why there is an Engagement|Portrait category and a Services|Photographer category. But that’s the reality of planning something as big as a wedding, there are many ways to organize things, and there really is no wrong way to do it.
In any case, the goal of this tab is to provide you with a quick reference on how much you’ve budgeted for every aspect of your wedding, and this section does this quite well.
Wedding Day Schedule
This section allows you to schedule your day from the time you leave home all the way to the reception (to the minute, if desired.)
The next few sections…
These sections (Flowers, Photography, Videography, Transportation) all deal with your key vendors. For the photography section, in particular, I like that they have two important items in the worksheet: Appointments, and Wedding party liaison, because it’s important to keep your photographer in the loop, especially on how your wedding day schedule is shaping up so that he or she can ensure that you have adequate coverage for the day and the wedding party liaison will be able to keep things moving by making sure everyone who needs to be in a photo will be close at hand.
Seating Planner
This section is self-explanatory… This will allow you to plan who sits where, and with whom. You have the ability to plan for up to fifty tables; there is no function to add more tables. Still, fifty tables should be sufficient for most people.
Honeymoon Packing Checklist
A checklist of everything you may need for your honeymoon. The list is fairly comprehensive — and good thing too, because you can’t add to the categories. You can in the Notes category, though, so that may be a decent workaround.
Overall, Ultimate Wedding Planner is an easy to use app that will help get busy brides organized. At $4.99, it’s worth the money to keep you organized if you already have an iPad. At free, it’s a no brainer. Get it. Click the button below to go to the iTunes link:
the glass slipper session
Choosing a wedding photographer can be tough. There is a wide variety of styles and packages available and, because each photographer operates just a little bit differently, it’s difficult to compare apples to apples. In an effort to pare down the number of choices, you put together some criteria and book some meetings to get to know some photographers. During your meeting, you evaluate your shortlisted photographers against your criteria on the basis of a brief meeting and a review of material that puts the photographer’s abilities and experience in the best light. But is that coffee-table meeting enough?
Read More»i am beautiful: how to look great in front of the camera
As you stand in line at the checkout counter, your eyes naturally get drawn to the magazines in the stands. Scanning through the magazines, you may notice that almost everyone there looks absolutely amazing! It must be nice to be born beautiful, right? Then getting in front of a camera would be easy!
Fortunately, for the rest of us, looking great in front of a camera isn’t all about genetics. There are many practical things you can do, both on and off the camera, to make you look good.
As a photographer I am completely aware that, for many people, getting in front of a camera can be a little awkward. And, to be honest, I much prefer at the back of the camera than in front of it! Having said that, because I spend a lot of time behind the lens, I want to share some advice that will help you look great in front of the camera!
study the pros
Ever wonder what models do all day? If you’re like me, you probably have scenes from Zoolander in your head: **blue steel**. The scene, as silly as it is, has some truth to it.
Models, like most business people, are constantly finding ways to make their product more appealing. In their case, their body is their product. They spend time figuring out what colors look great on them. They spend time figuring out which is their best side. They spend time figuring out how to stand/sit/lean so that they always present their good side to the camera. They pour all this effort so that when it comes time for their photo shoot, they will have the key to be really really ridiculously good looking: confidence. Once they have that, they will look ahmaaaaaazing, daaaaahling.
Have a look at some magazines and notice how they stand, how they look, where they look, what they wear and imagine yourself walking down the street, rocking out your fashion collection from your closet. Mimic their poses, practice them, and tell yourself: I am beautiful!
practice on your mirror
Your mirror is your most honest and kindest friend when it comes to looking great in front of a camera. It tells you exactly how you look without being judgmental, so you can spend some time looking at it and trying out different looks. Here’s a quote from a famous (fictional) male model:
If I have a day off I’ll spend four to nine hours in front of the mirror, trying just a tilt of the head or a furrow of my eyelash. I mean my body, my face are my tools. — Derek Zoolander
Okay, you probably really don’t need “four to nine hours” on your day off in front of a mirror, but I believe if you spend some time in front of the mirror, you’re a step further in looking amazing for your photos!
Really important side note: once you discover something that works for you, because a mirror is a reflection of you, you’ll need to flip it! So, if you parted your hair to the left, part it to the right.
get some rest
This is the advice you hear most often on this topic — and for good reason! It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it really does work! Being rested helps:
- your eyes to look better
those dark bags under your eyes either won’t be there, or at least, they won’t be as visible - your skin to look better
by allowing your skin to be rejuvenated and less prone to blemishes, like acne! - your entire body to look better
because you’ll have the energy you need to support your body properly, and you’ll be in a better mood overall
A well-rested person, is a good looking person!
love your photographer
This, of course, is my favorite piece of advice! When selecting a wedding photographer, I advise brides to choose wisely, and choose someone you connect with, because I strongly believe that there needs to be chemistry between you and your photographer. He needs to be someone who can put you at ease and someone that you can have fun with. A good photographer is one that helps you forget that there’s even a camera around.
Your photographer is the first person to ever see the photos from your shoot. He is the one who visualizes them, composes them, and positions you. Trust his creativity and his style and complement it with your personality.
Your personality, of course, is the most important aspect of your photos. Without it, you have simply have people in a frame. With it, you have a captured moment, a locked-in emotion. Love your photographer, and gush with personality, and you will have amazing photos.
Great-looking people aren’t born, they’re made with a little work, a little rest, and a lot of love! Now, repeat after me: “I am beautiful.” Good. Now do something about it!
