AI is taking the world by storm, and the wedding industry is especially enamored with this new tech superpower. While there are talks of ethics and proper AI usage that you should bear in mind, wedding pros and couples alike can agree that there are some definite benefits to utilizing AI for wedding planning.
Whether you’re a wedding pro looking to streamline and make smart business moves or a couple that needs a little push in the right direction, AI can step in for whatever hurdle you’re facing. Here are some major ways that both pros and couples are unlocking hidden potential.
How wedding pros are using AI
“I use AI as a conceptual tool to create visually pleasing proposals and assist potential clients in ‘seeing it before they see it.’ Many times, clients have a vision but are not necessarily able to articulate it, and other times they aren’t able to fully understand the intricacies of presented design concepts. Using AI affords us the opportunity to create one-of-a-kind designs and give clients enough details for them to be satisfied and confident in the vision. It’s important to use AI responsibly and make sure that you don’t overstimulate the prompts so as to not promise something that is outside the confines of budget or won’t work logistically.”
– Shanina McCregg, smstylelounge.com
“Wedding vendors are using AI to their advantage in order to get more organized or complete mundane tasks and gain some time back to work on the creative side of their business. Tasks like creating a social media plan or creating an Instagram plan would normally take so long to figure out what to post, when, and how to reutilize the material and cross-post it, but with AI, you can easily have a social media plan within seconds; it will tell you exactly what to post, create captions and give you ideas for the whole month.”
– Hellen Oliveira, Hellen CO Photos + Films
“Photographers are successfully utilizing AI-powered editing from Photoshop to specialized software like Images or AfterShoot. These AI-powered programs can sift through images to mark photos that have closed eyes, are out of focus or have the best smiles. They can also apply basic camera adjustments to exposure, contrast and color to a photographer’s specifications. Photoshop is offering a beta version that uses AI to remove or replace objects in a photo, which is great for editing things out, like pesky exit signs.”
– Tracy Autem, Tracy Autem & Lightly Photography
“We are using AI in very intentional ways. It’s often daunting having to stare at a blank page to begin, so we use AI to generate first drafts of social media captions and blog posts. The important thing to note is that we never use the AI content as is; we tweak it to suit our brand voice and style. We have also used it to give a ‘glow-up’ to many of our templated email responses, just to give them some new life!”
– Renée Dalo, Moxie Bright Events
“Wedding vendors are able to really dig into AI in so many different capacities. We have loved seeing vendors use AI for backend business items and for client-facing items, too. Some popular ways are backend (blogs, SEO website verbiage updates) and client-facing (proposal verbiage, image generators for proposals and color descriptions).”
– Elizabeth Sheils, Rock Paper Coin
“As a wedding vendor, I utilize AI to generate ideas for my business when I’m unsure where to start. For example, I needed to create a job description for tasks related to my second shooter when I was still in the hiring process and wasn’t even certain about the ideal candidate. AI quickly generated a list of 15 tasks. I modified, added and removed some, but it provided an excellent starting point.”
– Elena Gera, Focus on the Moment Photography
“We are using AI to draft and edit copy to fit different themes. For example, you can ask ChatGPT to take a snippet of a menu description you created and see if a rewrite in the voice of Anthony Bourdain or Padma Lakshmi makes it more compelling.”
– Vijay Goel, Bite Catering Couture
How couples are using AI
“Couples can use AI to create language on their invitation. Invitations can be formal sometimes, and couples don’t usually know the proper way to create a formalized invitation; now they can use AI to help create the formal language in order to invite their guests to their wedding.”
– Hellen Oliveira, Hellen CO Photos + Films
“Our couples are using AI to generate content for the wedding websites, especially when it comes to: ‘What’s a polite way to say your kids aren’t invited to our wedding’? More nuanced info works well with AI. And again, you have to edit it further to make sure it’s accurate and it sounds like you. AI has been very useful in the ‘fun things to do in LA’ pages of my clients’ wedding websites.”
– Renée Dalo, Moxie Bright Events
“We have noticed couples are having fun using AI, mainly with text-generator AI tools, such as invitation copy, vows, toasts and website verbiage. While we have not seen it a lot yet, we love when couples lean into AI with music selection, guest list management, social media sharing and post-event thank-you notes.”
– Elizabeth Sheils, Rock Paper Coin
“For most couples, this is the first and only large-scale event that they’ll ever plan. Most people don’t know where to start when it comes to that, and online wedding resources can be tricky to navigate. For example, we’ve seen couples use AI to assist with planning timelines and day-of itineraries with relative ease. You should always be communicating with your wedding pro team, but AI can help with the basics if you have specific questions.”
– Kevin Dennis, Fantasy Sound Event Services
“AI goes beyond text generation. If you’re planning a gluten-free wedding menu, AI can be your culinary assistant. It can come up with a menu featuring 10 to 12 items in less than a minute, leaving you with the enjoyable task of making your selections.”
– Elena Gera, Focus on the Moment Photography
The benefits to utilizing AI for wedding planning can be endless. Although it can be a huge timesaver (and give us a little inspiration when needed!), it isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. AI is still learning—just like we are—and it’s important to stay educated on proper and realistic usage!