Review – My OK! Wedding Planning App
Hello all, I’ve recently had the opportunity to test-drive an App from the very nice people at My OK! Wedding.
The App in question covers wedding planning, and the thought of having all I needed for wedding planning reference goodness was too hard to pass up.
Installation
The app can be downloaded through the app store or via iTunes, both ways are dead easy and if you are used to getting other apps then I am sure you will be fine. No problems here.
Does this look manly to you?
First Impressions
The app certainly looks professional. I can’t say I like the bright red banner at the top of the screen declaring My OK! Wedding – but it is their app and their brand image so I suppose I can let them off for this!
What I will say is that this is not designed towards men. Period. The design is all champagne colours, curled script fonts and generally would not look out of place in one of the many and non-varied wedding magazines that are out there. Your fiancée may love this, however I did not and was more than a little disappointed that they were specifically asking for the opinion of the UK’s leading men’s wedding magazine about an app that clearly had not been designed with any thought for grooms whatsoever.
The Features
There are a lot of websites around that offer you an allegedly one-stop shop for tracking and organising your wedding planning. The App features much the same general features as these, but with some unique offerings. They thoughtfully have included an info page which is easily accessed from the home page
- Countdown – found on the home screen, this tells you exactly how long you have until your big day.
Pros – easy to set the date and I can confirm that it indeed counts down
Cons – I managed to hang the app so that it would not go back from the choose the date area even after closing the app. Only a hard handset reboot fixed the issue.
I am really not sure what central date/time locale the countdown is measured by; it doesn’t seem to be the UK that’s for sure. I would like it if it synched properly and linked itself to the timezone you are in. - “My Wedding Planner” – This is essentially a very prettified spreadsheet. It’s populated with the usual suspects like flowers, catering etc. Another sign this is designed for women is the order that these appear on the list.
Pros – easy to edit items on the list and add new or delete categories as you need to
Cons – only has a due date for payment, I thought this as a little short sighted as it’s very rare in the wedding planning game that you won’t have to put down a deposit. Some way to split out what’s paid, what’s due and when for both deposits and full invoices would be better. I can see that space would be an issue, but not having that information is just a barrier to adoption, it’s a tough call from a design perspective. - “My Wedding Guests” – this splits down to 3 sections involved with all the people coming on the day. It’s best to start with the Address Book feature, and then the people can be pulled into the other sections: Guest list (broken down into day, evening etc.) and My Seating Plan (I found it hard to visualise tables in the small iphone format, so I am not sure how much use it is)
Pros – A great feature was the ability to populate your address book from your iphone address book. This only works if you actually organise your address book properly and don’t have 8 different entries for your mum in there like we all used to do back before smartphones were common. I know I do but I also know a lot of people like Sharon who have not taken the time to reorganise their phone listings since their Nokia 3210.
Cons – I want to see actual tables with a table planner and I don’t think I get any benefit from having them as a list on a phone - My Wedding Suppliers – A separate address book for all the people providing you with the ingredients for your big day. These can also be added from your address book, which is cool if you already have all the details listed (but chances are most people don’t, see above).
Pros – From what I can tell you can put multiple suppliers in for the same category, allowing you to have the details for when you are getting quotes in – if this is the intention it would be a good idea to somehow be able to track these quotes?
Cons – None really, but always room for improvement! - Navigation – not really a feature per se, but the bright red banner also doubles as your navigation pane. Navigation is smooth and intuitive. One feature I like was the ability to send out an email using this bar, which was contextual depending on which screen you were looking at. If this app was more Groom-focussed it would be a great tool to send out mass emails to the groomsmen.
Summary
I liked this app, it was easy to use and intuitive. However I am very disappointed that it’s so obviously targeted to just the bride. In the Year of The Groom I would have liked to see something giving something more for the other person involved in the day. One who is taking more and more of a front seat in the organisation.
There are other planning apps and planning sites out there, many of which offer their service for free. Unless My OK! Wedding can give more innovative features, I would struggle to justify the price £2.99 price tag.
At the end of the day, I want my AWESOME! Wedding, not just OK! – Unfortunately this App falls into the latter category.
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