Free wedding planning checklist and budget tracker

One checklist, sorted by category and due date

A wedding has a few hundred small decisions, and the reason they slip is that they live nowhere in particular — some in your inbox, some in a group chat, some in your head. Duva’s checklist gives every one of them a home. Each task belongs to a category — Planning, Venue, Vendors, Attire, Beauty, Guests, Stationery, Ceremony, Reception, Legal, Travel, Gifts & registry, and Final week among them — and carries a due date, so the list reads as a plan rather than a wall of reminders. A progress bar across the top tells you, at a glance, how much of the whole thing is done.

The list is generated from the wedding you described when you set up your account, not handed to you as a blank template you have to prune. Enter a two-day celebration and the tasks span both days; add a ceremony and a reception and each picks up the items it actually needs. You can add your own tasks, reorder them, and check things off as you go — the point is that the structure is already there when you start.

• Fifteen categories. Every task is filed under a real category — venue, attire, stationery, legal — instead of one long undifferentiated list.
• A due date on each. Tasks are dated so the list sequences itself; you see what is due next, not just what exists.
• A single progress bar. One bar shows how far along the whole plan is, across every category at once.

What the checklist looks like month by month

Because tasks are dated, the checklist naturally falls into a timeline. Early on — roughly twelve to ten months out — it surfaces the big rocks: lock the date, set a working budget, tour and book the venue, start a guest count. In the nine-to-six-month window it turns to the vendors that book up first: photographer, caterer, band or DJ, and anyone whose calendar fills a year ahead.

Five to three months out, the list shifts to detail — invitations and stationery, attire fittings, the menu tasting, hotel blocks, day-of logistics. The final month is confirmations: headcounts to the caterer, the timeline to every vendor, final payments and tips. Week-of is a short, sharp list — welcome bags, the seating chart, who is holding the rings — the things that would otherwise keep you up at night. You never have to build that cadence yourself; the due dates lay it out for you.

• 12–10 months: the big rocks. Date, budget, venue, and a first guest count — the decisions everything else hangs on.
• 9–6 months: book early vendors. Photographer, caterer, and music get reserved before their calendars fill.
• Final month & week-of. Confirm counts, send the timeline, settle payments, then the short day-of list.

A budget tracker that shows estimate against actual

Set a total and the budget tracker distributes it across categories, then keeps two numbers side by side for each line: what you estimated and what you have actually spent. As deposits go out and invoices land, you replace estimates with real figures and the running total updates itself, so the question "how much have we actually committed?" always has an honest answer — not a guess you reconstruct the night before a payment is due.

The top-line figure is editable and scale-to-fit: change it and Duva rebalances the category estimates around the new number instead of making you rework every line. And because most weddings are paid for by more than one household, each line can be assigned to Side 1, Side 2, or Shared, so the two sides can each see exactly what they are covering. It is a spreadsheet’s worth of structure without the broken formulas.

• Estimate beside actual. Every category shows planned cost next to real spend, so the total is never a guess.
• Assign lines to a side. Tag each cost Side 1, Side 2, or Shared so both families see their own share.
• Editable, scale-to-fit total. Change the top number and the category estimates rebalance around it automatically.

A vendor tracker wired into the rest

A wedding runs on a dozen suppliers, each at a different stage — one you are still researching, one you have emailed, one you have booked with a deposit down. The vendor tracker moves each through those states and holds the details that otherwise scatter: the quote, the deposit paid, the contact, and any notes. No more hunting a florist’s number through three months of email.

The tracker’s real value is that it is not a standalone list. Mark a vendor booked, enter the amount, and that one action checks off the matching checklist task and files the cost in the right budget category and side split — no double entry, nothing to reconcile the week of the wedding. Log a decision once and all three tools reflect it.

• From researching to booked. Track each supplier through its stage, with the quote, deposit, and contact attached.
• Booking updates everything. Marking a vendor booked checks its task and posts the cost to your budget in one step.
• Enter it once. A decision logged in the vendor tracker shows up on the checklist and in the budget too.

Built on the same guest list you already keep

The planner is not a separate app you sync by hand. It shares an account with your wedding website, guest list, RSVP collection, and messaging, so the guests and events you enter once feed everything. That shared foundation is why booking a caterer can touch your budget, and why the people who RSVP yes are the same people your seating chart is built from.

Practically, that means you plan and run the wedding from one place instead of stitching a website builder, a spreadsheet, and a to-do app together and hoping they agree. Invite a partner, a parent, or a professional planner to the same account and everyone works from one current view rather than three stale copies.

• The guests feed the plan. The same list behind your RSVPs is what the checklist, budget, and seating draw on.
• One account for all of it. Website, RSVP, messaging, and planning share a dashboard — no exporting between tools.
• Shared with your people. A partner, a parent, or a planner can work from the same live plan you do.

Planner Pro: seating charts and more planning power

Planner Pro is an optional one-time $49 purchase for the home stretch. Its headline is a seating chart that seeds itself from the guests who RSVP’d yes, so you arrange tables from a confirmed headcount instead of a blank grid — and because it reads the same guest list, moving a guest never leaves your counts out of step. You can lay out tables per event and export the chart when the venue asks for it.

It is a single purchase, never a subscription, and it changes nothing about the core planner: the checklist, budget tracker, and vendor tracker stay free whether or not you ever buy it. Pro simply adds the heavier planning tools for couples who want them once the guest list firms up.

• Seating from real RSVPs. Tables seed from the guests who confirmed, so you start seating from an actual headcount.
• Per-event, exportable. Lay out tables for each event and export the chart when your venue needs it.
• One-time, not a plan. A single $49 purchase; the core checklist, budget, and vendors stay free regardless.

How to start planning

There is nothing to import and no template to trim. You describe the wedding once and the tools assemble around it.

• Describe the wedding. Add your dates, events, and rough guest count when you create your account.
• Get a dated checklist. Duva generates the to-do list, sorted into categories with due dates already set.
• Set your number. Enter a total, let it split across categories, and assign lines to each side.
• Track and book. Add vendors, move them toward booked, and watch the checklist and budget keep up.

What you pay

The three planning tools are free on every Duva account — no plan to subscribe to and no charge that grows with your guest count. The lone add-on is Planner Pro, a one-time $49 unlock for seating charts and the heavier planning tools; skip it and nothing in the checklist, budget, or vendor tracker is locked away. The planner sits alongside Duva’s free wedding website, guest list, and RSVP collection, so the whole planning side of your wedding costs nothing to run.