That being said, the wedding planning process, from what I've seen from some of my friends, and dreamed about for my very own wedding (one day!), can be very hectic and have a ton of moving parts. You need to have resources at the touch of your fingertips and woe betide the site with the poor user experience across multiple platforms!
It is good practice to implement responsive design - the same experience across multiple screens (i.e. web, tablet, mobile, etc.). This enhances the user experiences and yes, limits the amount of bride-zillas in the world.
A property that really does a great job of this is The Knot. The Knot is a one-stop wedding planning solution featuring the latest trends, money saving techniques, you name it! And the best part is that the experience you get on the website is the same across both your mobile and tablet devices. Not only does the property conform to the device you are using (responsive design) but the login you use for the website is the same across the other platforms so you are able to access your checklist, budgeter, favorites, picks, guest list and vendors and never feel like you HAVE to have to your tablet on you or be near your computer. This makes wedding planning a lot more simple and convenient.
Take a look at the website itself:
It's got a pretty clean design, very easy to navigate and draws the user in immediately with top picks (Our Favorites) from a trusted source. The soft white background and the soft colors immediately put you in a wedding planning mindset (i.e. the white dress, the something blue, etc.) You've got an easy menu on the left side to get your planning started and on the top right, you can see whats trending, almost as if this website is your best friend, nay your maid of honor, helping you out with every step of the wedding planning process. At the top of the site is another menu that takes you to the hot ticket items - vendors, dresses, tools, photos and honeymoons. It even has a section for the bride-to-be to gain inspiration from real wedding stories that users submit. Talk about chock full of useful information and content that keeps the user in mind the minute they land on the site.
If you go to this very same website on your mobile or tablet device this is what you'll see:
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| Mobile Experience |
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| Tablet Experience |
The experience is consistent across the board and optimizes based on the device you are using.
What's more, The Knot also has an app called My Wedding Planner which looks like this:
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| Mobile App |
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| Tablet App |
Again the experience is consistent for the user.
Finally, when I was on my tablet playing with the experience of the website, not the app, I got the following images:
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| Tablet App Download CTA |
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| Beta App Download CTA |
Here, The Knot's responsive design has detected that I'm using my iPad to view the website. They are asking if I'd like to download the accompanying wedding planner app shown above. The second image is asking me if I want to be a part of a beta of new apps that The Knot will be releasing shortly. Because I'm wedding obsessed, of course I signed up.
The one thing I would say about the Tablet App Download CTA was that I had already downloaded the app so I was a little annoyed when I saw that pop up. That tells me that The Knot doesn't have an API feed telling them whether a user already has the app downloaded. It's a minor annoyance but if it continues to happen every time, it could actually become a bigger problem.
Overall, however, The Knot is a great example of how to tying the knot all together across multiple platforms and not only providing the user a streamline experience but one that is full of extremely useful content thus making them a trusted source.
-D
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