Date-aware
85 tasks, mapped to your specific date
Every task lands on the week it's actually due — venue lock-in, photographer booking, USPS mail-by, RSVP cutoff, marriage-license window, final headcount. No generic month-by-month template.
Personal wedding checklist
A wedding checklist,built aroundyour day.
Every deadline that matters — the USPS mailing window, your state's license rules, the caterer's headcount lock — back-calculated from your specific date. Tell us when. We'll handle the rest.
30 seconds. You'll see the next thing to handle before you decide on the unlock.
- 85tasks mapped to your date
- 7email reminders, no spam
- $24once · 30-day refund
01/ 03
The problemGeneric checklists miss the deadlines
Generic checklists miss the deadlines
you can't reverse.
Ever notice every free checklist tells you the same generic things? Book the venue. Mail invitations. Pick your colors. None of them mention the USPS mail-by, your state's license window, or the headcount lock with the caterer — the calendar facts that actually break the day if you miss them.
93 things you'd otherwise have to remember
- Write a joint vision statement (season, vibe, formality, scale)
- List your three non-negotiables and three things you don't care about
- Agree on two or three target date windows (avoid holidays and family conflicts)
- Set a realistic all-in budget and a 10% contingency buffer
- Confirm who is contributing and how (couple, families, gifts)
- Open a dedicated bank account or card for wedding spend
- Draft a planning scope document covering deliverables, hours, and payment milestones
- Create a shared wedding email inbox and cloud folder (contracts / inspiration / guest list)
- Start a moodboard (Pinterest, Milanote) to test visual coherence
- Draft A-list / B-list at a range (e.g. 80–120). Share only the A-list publicly
- Shortlist 5–7 venues matching budget, capacity, and aesthetic
- Bring a tour checklist: power outlets, loading dock, noise curfew, rain plan, bathroom count
- Validate fire-marshal-approved capacity against your realistic guest range
- Read the contract for force majeure, postponement, vendor restrictions, and overtime fees
- Pay the deposit and file the signed contract in your shared folder
- If outdoor: get the written rain plan and photograph the backup space
- Purchase wedding insurance (liability + cancellation)
- Write a brief: style (editorial, documentary, film), must-have shots, family group list preview
- Interview 3 photographers; review full galleries, not highlight reels
- Decide on videography and book alongside photography (often same preferred-vendor list)
- Secure your officiant. If religious, confirm pre-marriage class requirements
- Planner builds the master timeline and vendor tracker in whatever tool the team uses (Aisle Planner, Honeybook, Notion)
- Hold a formal kickoff with the couple: review vision, budget, and decision framework
- Order wedding dress / suit. Standard lead time is 6–9 months plus 8–12 weeks for alterations
- Reserve accessories (veil, shoes, undergarments) so alteration fittings use the real shoe height
- Finalize the wedding party and define each role in writing
- Share a mood board and cost range for wedding-party attire
- Lock the final color palette (3 primary, 2 accent). Every future proof is checked against it
- Book the florist after a proposal that itemizes stems, containers, and install labor
- Pre-book specialty rentals (chargers, linens, lounge furniture) with a hold deposit
- Draft the lighting plan with the venue's preferred electrician
- Open a registry at 2–3 retailers across three price tiers ($50 / $100 / $250+)
- Publish the wedding website with logistics, accommodations, dress code, and RSVP link
- Hire a stationer and commission the wedding suite design (save-the-date → invitation → day-of paper)
- Mail save-the-dates 6–8 months out (8–10 months for destination weddings)
- Negotiate room blocks at 2 hotels (one premium, one budget). Ask for shuttle concessions in the contract
- If destination: send a travel landing page with flight, lodging, and visa guidance
- Confirm caterer and schedule a tasting with 2 main-course and 2 dessert options
- Decide bar format (open / beer-wine / cash / signature cocktails) and confirm BYO rules
- Book the cake / dessert vendor and finalize flavors after the caterer's tasting
- Book DJ or band. Request their contract's overtime, break, and equipment-failure clauses
- Book wedding-party and guest transport; map pickup points and load times
- Proof invitation wording, event times, and dress code. Get three pairs of eyes
- Send to print with a 3-week buffer before the mailing date
- Configure RSVP tracking (paper + online). Decide the reply-by date
- Draft the ceremony order with the officiant: processional, readings, vows, unity moment, recessional
- Begin drafting personal vows (if writing your own)
- Mail invitations 8–10 weeks before the wedding with RSVP deadline 3–4 weeks before the date
- Verify addresses against the latest A/B list. Build the RSVP master tracker
- Attend final catering tasting and sign off on BEO (banquet event order)
- Finalize floor plan with venue: head table, guest tables, bar, DJ, dance floor, photo corners
- Support the bridal shower host with a guest list and registry share link
- Book bachelor / bachelorette travel and share the itinerary with the wedding party
- Email every vendor a confirmation sheet: arrival time, setup window, COI, point of contact
- Schedule remaining vendor payments and prep labeled tip envelopes
- Confirm rehearsal-dinner venue, menu, and attendee count
- Assign speech slots (parents, best people, couple) and set a 3-minute max
- Book and attend hair / makeup trials
- Research your marriage-license window (30–90 days varies by state; some require a waiting period)
- Chase outstanding RSVPs by phone or text. Close the guest list 14 days out
- Send final guaranteed count to caterer, bar, and cake baker (typically 7–10 business days out)
- Build the seating chart. Test escort card / digital seating app before printing
- Distribute the final minute-by-minute timeline to all vendors, wedding party, and family
- Finalize the photography shot list and family group list
- Attend the final dress / suit fitting. Break in shoes at home
- Pick up the marriage license within your state's valid window
- Schedule a no-wedding-talk night and a sleep routine for the final 2 weeks
- Assemble welcome bags and deliver to hotel front desks with a named list
- Run the final venue walkthrough with catering and rental crews
- Build the day-of emergency kit (stain remover, sewing kit, pain reliever, phone chargers)
- Host the rehearsal + dinner. Hand out printed timelines to the wedding party
- Sleep. Hydrate. Do not try new skincare or a crash diet this week
- Finalize vows and speeches. Print on paper even if you memorized them
- Run the morning-of checklist: nourish, hydrate, leave phones at the door of the getting-ready suite
- Planner (or designated coordinator) is the single vendor point of contact; couple stays off phone
- Marriage license and rings delivered to officiant before the ceremony
- Enjoy the ceremony, first dance, and reception. Everything from here is handled
- Mail / return the signed marriage license within your state's deadline
- Close out any remaining vendor balances and tip anyone missed day-of
- Track photo + video delivery (typical: 6–8 weeks for photos, 8–16 weeks for video)
- Update tax-filing status with employer (W-4) for the rest of the year
- Add spouse + update beneficiaries (health, life, retirement, banking)
- Order 3–5 certified marriage-certificate copies from the county clerk
- Step 1 — Update your Social Security card (Form SS-5)
- Step 2 — Update your driver's license at your state DMV
- Step 3 — Update your passport
- Step 4 — Update bank, employer, utilities, loyalty programs, beneficiaries
- Send handwritten thank-yous within 2–3 months of the wedding
- Leave detailed reviews for the vendors you loved (Google, The Knot, Zola)
- Send the wedding dress to a preservationist within 6 weeks
- Review the photo gallery and order the wedding album
- Keeping cake top-tier or another anniversary tradition? Wrap and freeze immediately
- Leave for the honeymoon. You earned it
Hover to pause · sourced from county clerks, USPS, IACP, the FTC
Why pay when there's a free one?
What you actually get for $24 vs. the free options.
Generic checklists give you 40 milestones. Plana gives you 85 tasks mapped to your date, your state's license rules, and a calendar file you can drop into Google or Apple.
| Feature | Plana$24 once | The KnotFree (ad-funded) | ZolaFree (ad-funded) | Aisle Planner$30+/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tasks mapped to your specific wedding date | ||||
| State-specific marriage-license windows + waiting periods | ||||
| USPS-aligned invitation mail-by dates | ||||
| Add-to-calendar export (.ics) | ||||
| Printable PDF, personalized to your names + date | ||||
| Sourced from county clerks, USPS, FTC — not blog opinions | ||||
| No ads or vendor placements inside the plan | ||||
| No subscription required |
Plana$24 once
- Tasks mapped to your specific wedding date
- State-specific marriage-license windows + waiting periods
- USPS-aligned invitation mail-by dates
- Add-to-calendar export (.ics)
- Printable PDF, personalized to your names + date
- Sourced from county clerks, USPS, FTC — not blog opinions
- No ads or vendor placements inside the plan
- No subscription required
The Knot · Zola — Free (ad-funded)
- State-specific marriage-license windows + waiting periods
- USPS-aligned invitation mail-by dates
- Add-to-calendar export (.ics)
- Printable PDF, personalized to your names + date
- Sourced from county clerks, USPS, FTC — not blog opinions
- No ads or vendor placements inside the plan
Aisle Planner — $30+/mo
Most features comparable, but subscription pricing accumulates over a 12-month engagement to ~$360 vs. Plana's $24 once.
IncludedPartial / genericNot offered· Comparison verified May 2026 from each vendor's public features
02/ 03
How it works
Anchored to your day. Paced to your year.
Two ways to see the same plan — your year on a real calendar, and every feature we put in the work to make automatic.
See it on a calendar
Your year, with the deadlines that actually matter.
Six hard deadlines, back-calculated from a Sep 14 wedding. Each on the real day it's due.
- Save-the-dates
- Invitations · USPS
- RSVP cutoff
- Licence window
- Final headcount
- Wedding day
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
Sample · September 14 wedding date · 1-year engagement · NY
What's in the $24
A wedding companion that earns its keep.
Eight things, in plain language.
All 50 states
State marriage-license rules tracked
Pickup window, waiting period, validity, witness count — kept current per state. When your wedding date crosses into the relevant window, your plan auto-surfaces it as an action item.
Active
7 timed email reminders
Welcome → invitations mail-by → RSVP chase → license window opens → headcount lock → day-of playbook nudge → wedding-week kickoff → post-wedding 30-day plan. Opt-in. Unsubscribe one-click.
Day-of
Run-of-show generator
Tell us 5 things about your timing — we back-calculate the full day from getting-ready through send-off. Vendor contact sheet, packing list, emergency kit, texts to send. Print Friday night.
See itVendor outreach
Inquiry email templates
Photographer, venue, caterer, florist, DJ/band, officiant, coordinator. Auto-populated with your date + location + guest count. Copy, paste, send — 5 minutes instead of 30.
Engagement-aware
Compresses for short engagements
12-month plan compresses to fit your timeline — 6 months, 9 months, 4 months. Hard deadlines (USPS, IACP, state license) stay calendar-fixed; soft phases scale down.
On-track diagnostic
"You're behind" alert
When you're under 4 months out and behind the typical pace, the dashboard shows the gap. No vague encouragement — concrete number of tasks behind, and what to triage first.
Sourced
Cited public-record sources
USPS mailing windows, county-clerk license rules, IACP catering deadlines, FTC vendor-contract guidance, SSA name-change procedures. Every timing claim points back to a source.
See it03/ 03
The proofWhere it caught what couples
Where it caught what couples
would've missed.
Three couples. Three calls that didn't happen. Any one of them, by itself, paid for the $24.
The state-license calculation flagged that our planned trip back to my parents' place would put us outside New York's 60-day pickup window. We rebooked travel in time. Worth $24 just for that, honestly.
Maya & Chris
Married September 2025 · Hudson Valley, NY
Six months out, both working full-time, no planner. The 'you're behind schedule' alert told us we were ~12 tasks behind the typical pace at week 22. We caught up over two weekends instead of the wedding-week panic everyone else seems to have.
Priya & Alex
Married April 2026 · Seattle, WA
The day-of playbook earned its keep — our coordinator said it was the most organized run-of-show she'd ever seen from a couple. The vendor-inquiry templates also paid for themselves on the photographer hunt alone — eight emails out in 30 minutes instead of three.
Jules & Dan
Married June 2025 · Austin, TX
Why this checklist holds up
Built on records, not blog roundups.
Every timing window points back to a public record or trade association you can verify yourself. No SEO-optimized guesswork.
Sourced
Cited public-record sources
Marriage-license rules from each state's county clerk. Mailing windows from USPS. Consumer-protection rules from the FTC. Vendor lead times from trade associations — not wedding-blog opinion.
View source listCoverage
All 50 states' license rules tracked
Pickup window, waiting period, validity, witness count — kept current per state. When your wedding date crosses into the relevant window, the plan auto-surfaces it as an action item.
No fluff
Records-first, not blog-first
We deliberately avoid wedding-blog content as primary sources. If we can't cite a public record or trade association for a timing window, it doesn't make it into the workflow.
A note from the founders
“We almost missed our own state's marriage-license window. So we built the checklist that wouldn't let anyone miss theirs.”
Every wedding checklist we found while planning ours gave the same generic milestones — book the venue, mail invitations, write vows. None of them told us the license has a 24-hour waiting period and expires 60 days after issue, which meant the trip we'd already booked back home would've put us outside the pickup window.
We figured it out in time. Three friends planning their own weddings asked for our spreadsheet. That spreadsheet became Plana — every task tied to a public record, every deadline mapped to your specific date and your specific state. Sourced from county clerks, USPS, the IACP, and the FTC — not wedding-blog opinion.
It costs $24 once, because nobody plans a wedding for 30 years. Use it for the months you actually need it, then keep the printable plan and the calendar export. No subscription. No upsell.
Less than the photographer's trial-print fee. A $250 cancellation clause you didn't spot — or one mailed-late invitation suite — costs more than the unlock, ten times over.
What unlocks
- All 14 phases (~85 tasks)
- Full .ics export (20+ events)
- 7 timed email reminders
- Day-of run-of-show generator
- Vendor inquiry templates
- Printable PDF
- Thank-you note tracker
- Post-wedding 30-day plan
$24once
30-day refundNo subscriptionStripe checkout
Questions
The seven questions couples ask before they buy.
Why isn't a free Knot/Zola checklist enough?
Because they were built for someone else's wedding. They show you milestones in calendar-month buckets — "Month 8: book the caterer" — without asking what your date actually is, what state you're getting married in, or how long your engagement is. The USPS invitation-mailing window, your state's marriage-license waiting period, and the IACP's final-headcount lock are calendar facts. Plana calculates them from your specific date and surfaces them as fixed deadlines with the source cited.
What's free, and what unlocks for $24?
Free forever: enter your date, see your current and next phase, tick off tasks, get a 6-event .ics preview emailed to you, see a partial day-of playbook. The $24 lifetime unlock turns on the rest — all 14 phases (~85 tasks), the full .ics export (20+ events), 7 email reminders timed to your date, the day-of run-of-show generator, vendor inquiry templates auto-populated with your details, the printable PDF, and the post-wedding 30-day plan. No subscription.
How are the email reminders timed?
Seven emails, each tied to a real deadline computed from your wedding date and state — welcome at opt-in, then 1 week before USPS invitation mail-by (T-63d), 1 week before RSVP cutoff (T-35d), 1 day before your state's marriage-license window opens (state-specific), 1 week before final-headcount lock (T-21d), 4 weeks out for the day-of playbook nudge (T-28d), wedding-week kickoff (T-7d), and a post-wedding 30-day plan kickoff (T+14d). One-click unsubscribe in every email.
What if my engagement is shorter than 12 months?
The plan compresses to fit. A 6-month engagement scales the soft phases proportionally — same 14 phases, distributed across 6 months instead of 12. Hard deadlines (USPS mail-by, IACP catering headcount, your state's marriage-license window, wedding week) stay calendar-fixed regardless, so nothing important slips. Works for engagements as short as 3 months.
Can my partner see what I tick off?
Yes — "Share with partner" copies a link with your full setup. They open it, see the same plan, same progress. Their changes save to their own browser. Real two-way sync (where ticks flow back to your view) is on the roadmap; today it's snapshot-share.
Where do the timing windows actually come from?
Every claim points back to a public source — USPS mailing guidance, the International Caterers Association for headcount lock, county clerk's offices for state-specific marriage-license rules across all 50 states, the FTC for vendor-contract red flags, the SSA for post-wedding name change, the State Department for passport changes. Full citation list lives in the references section of the tool. We deliberately avoid wedding-blog content as primary sources — they're optimized for SEO, not accuracy.
What's the refund policy?
30 days, no questions asked. Email [email protected] with the address you used at checkout and we refund through Stripe within 2 business days. You keep any printable PDF you exported.
Start free · pay only if it earns it
Start with your date. We'll take it from there.
You'll see your specific deadlines before you're asked for anything. The $24 unlock waits until you actually want the rest.
- 01
Your wedding date locks in
No card, no email
- 02
85 tasks render against your calendar
USPS, IACP, your state's clerk — all sourced
- 03
We surface this week's deadline first
Decide on the unlock after you've seen it
No card to start30-day refund
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