I Used AI To Plan My Wedding: Here's How It Went

Anyone who's ever planned a wedding knows how much work it is.

A couple of months ago, I spent my free time at the gym, grabbing drinks with friends, or taking weekend trips.

Now that I'm engaged? I spend it obsessively clicking-through The Knot; creating budget spreadsheets with intricate formulas that far surpass my high school math knowledge; and driving on the weekends to obscure towns in upstate Maine to tour wedding venues with my fiance.

All of which is to say: I have been desperate for help.

But I didn‘t want to put the burden on friends and family — instead, I thought I’d leverage AI to see how well a robot could plan my wedding.

I Asked AI to Plan My Wedding: Here's How It Went

First Up: My Wedding Venue

For starters, I asked ChatGPT for a list of wedding venues in Maine within 3-hours of Boston.

My requirements were simple, I wanted:

• A beach or lakefront property
• The option for an indoor barn reception
• Onsite accommodations for friends and family
• Catering and bar included
• An upscale, rustic, elegant, yet fun vibe

Easy peasy, right?

Here's what my lovely wedding-planner-robot spit back:

From there, ChatGPT encouraged me to email the vendors directly – except I didn't want to go through the trouble without seeing some images of each venue.

So I asked ChatGPT and got – no help whatsoever back:

Okay, fine, fine – I'll have to grab pictures the ol’ fashioned way. It could at least pull reviews though, right?

Now that I'm batting 0 for 2, I decided to take a quick break from ChatGPT to peruse the websites of the vendors it sent along.

Some of them were promising. Others didn‘t quite match my requirements – like the Inn at Ocean’s Edge, which is stunning but a 3.5 hour drive from Boston; plus, some of the others don‘t offer a barn space like I’d asked.

However, I was happy to add some to my list. While it seems AI is a great tool to use for initial venue list collection, it doesn't offer much to help me whittle my list down.

For that, I'll return dejectedly to my spreadsheets, websites, and long back-and-forth email threads.

Next: My Wedding Aesthetic

I decided to segue off the venue-hunt for the time-being and switch gears: What about florals? And color palette? Could AI help me with all of that?

Earthy tones like sand, driftwood brown, and sage green? Mason jars filled with wildflowers? Candles in hurricane vases?

Now we're talking.

I was wildly impressed by AI's ability to help me start to narrow down the types of floral arrangements, table settings, color palette, and lighting I should lean into to match my theme.

In fact, this gave me plenty of confidence that I likely don‘t need a wedding planner at all. With AI and Pinterest, I’m fairly certain I can begin to formulate an aesthetic I'm happy with.

While AI‘s responses were less-than-ideal during the venue-search phase, clearly, design is where it’s meant to shine.

What About Budget?

Here’s where we stand: I have zero idea of where we'll get married but am very satisfied with floral arrangements (my fiancé will be thrilled).

So, I decided to test out AI‘s advanced mathematical capabilities to help me budget for a wedding. I’m positive this is what the pioneers of machine learning had in mind when they conceptualized the practical uses for AI down the road.

Granted, if you add up the high end of each percentage, you‘ll see it equates to 138% of my total budget (and I’m no math wizard, but pretty sure we're looking for 100% here), but overall, this is a reasonable place for me to start whittling down my own budget based on preferences and priorities.

All in all, I'll give the credit to AI on this one.

There are hundreds of search results for “appropriate wedding budget”, so AI helped me streamline that information into one place.

Would I recommend a wedding planner, or AI?

Ultimately, I would argue that AI is slightly better than starting with a Google search.

When searching for venues, I was able to input plenty of personal requirements to get back relatively on-the-target results. With Google or wedding websites like The Knot, I'm not able to get quite as specific.

But AI is ultimately just that: A starting point.

From there, I still needed to peruse wedding websites to see photos of venues and read reviews. And, although AI was incredibly helpful with high-level design inspiration, it (again) can't really offer much in terms of real-life examples, so from there, I turned to Pinterest.

What I hope for more than anything is a version of AI that can match the expertise and guidance of a full-time wedding planner: With advanced capabilities to pull reviews, photos, and even costs for each venue; showcase some personalized mood board designs; and offer advice and feedback.

Too much to ask for from a robot? Probably. But a girl can dream.

Until then: Back to the Knot.