If you are planning your wedding without the help of a  wedding consultant, technology has come to the rescue with Bridal Planning applications  for your smart phone. For less than the cost of lunch, (and many of these are free) you can add an app to your cell phone and have all of your information at your fingertips at all times. This technology will not be wasted on your fiance, either. While you may think that all men see is flashing lights, rest assured that your gadget-guru will be caught up in the wedding planning a lot sooner than if you hand him a large binder crammed with swatches and post-its.

The iBride application is available for most smart phones and has comprehensive wedding planning, budget and shopping tools. The graphics and visuals on iBride are stunning and the screen looks easy to navigate, plus this application gets overall great reviews.

The Bride Guide handles it all. Tons of features including a countdown timer, to-do lists, budget calculator, and tons of informative articles that will take you from I will to I do.

Bridal Gown shopping goes high tech with iBridal Gown. Designed by a salon owner, this handy app keeps tabs on your top picks and lets you make notes and store pictures of your faves. The app stores all the pertinent info regarding each of your wedding gown hopefuls like style, designer, cost, location, and photos. You can also share the photos and details of your wedding dress choices privately in email or publicly on Facebook. 

WeddingScan is an intuitive wedding registry application that allows you to register for ANY item, at ANY store simply by scanning a product’s barcode with the WeddingScan iPhone app. If a product doesn’t have a barcode, WeddingScan allows you to take a picture of it and add a brief description.

theKnot wedding 911  Designed by the editors at the Knot magazine and the Knot.com this free iPhone app is your on-the-go source for expert wedding advice. You can even post questions and get instant answers from other brides-to-be.

Although not all of these applications are available for all phones just yet, it will happen. Very soon, all smart phones will have the technology to handle most of these applications and by then, there will be more.

 Do a little research to find out which apps are best for your phone, which ones you like the best and which ones suit your needs.

Most importantly: Have all information backed up on your computer in case you (God forbid) lose your phone or it gets ruined somehow.

-Penny Frulla for Bridal Expo Chicago