A wedding budget calculator tool for newly engaged couples.
About this project
Timeline
2024 Q2
My contributions
Design
Strategy
UX Research
Contributors
Karishma Kapur,
Senior Product Manager
Adam Lior,
Engineering Manager
Roger Newman,
Engineering Manager
Pavel Liser,
Senior Data Analyst
Kalyn Conley,
Senior Product
Marketing Manager
Jackie Gufford,
Senior UX Researcher
What is The Knot?
The Knot offers a robust suite of wedding planning tools for engaged couples.
What’s this project about?
We see a big opportunity to offer newly engaged couples a reference point for wedding cost pricing across the United States.
This interactive cost calculator can help couples get prepared to choose a wedding location, evaluate tradeoffs and book vendors.
We see from our proprietary research that the majority of couples create a wedding budget without an awareness of real costs, often resulting in a stressful process and typically a need to increase the budget mid-planning. This new tool can educate couples at the onset, and spare them the stress of an ill informed budget.
How does this project compare to the existing budget tool on The Knot?
The existing tool is a basic cost tracker for folks who already know their total budget, and need to track purchases or deposits with vendors.
How does this compare to other wedding budget features on the market?
This tool will be the first of its kind, offering couples robust proprietary cost data for hundreds of locations across the United States. Looking to book a DJ in New Orleans? Check out the average price range in the area, as well as tips to save and factors that influence the price.
The Knot's existing budget tool
Zola's budget tool
Budget advisor provides immediate value with real cost data.
The donut chart is limited to 10 total segments to maintain a more visually useful breakdown style. The smallest items will be grouped together in an 'other' category as needed.
An average budget for the area is displayed by default.
The customized state reflects user selections and location changes.
How does the Budget Advisor tool work?
On default, the dashboard shows a breakdown of the average wedding cost in the user's region — a great starting point!
Couples may then customize their cost breakdown by adding a different location, and selecting the types of vendors they expect to have for their wedding. This customization process is a powerful educational moment for couples as they’ll see their anticipated total budget number based on average costs for the location change in real time as they add and subtract items.
Are there more educational resources for couples?
While making selections, folks can navigate to a detail page for each vendor type and explore more financial information, factors that influence price and tips to save.
Explore average costs by location, using a map.
Taking inspiration from the Zillow app, this feature is fun and intuitive.
For folks who are considering multiple locations or a destination wedding, the map feature will be especially useful. Couples will be able to access the average budget for hundreds of locations, as well a full cost breakdown per location.
How can couples continue wedding planning after exploring costs?
Couples may also browse vendors in our marketplace, filtered to fit their budget, with estimates based on our cost data or vendor submitted.
In our next release on this project, we will be adding the ability to edit the total budget with a custom number.
Vendors, lower on the dashboard
Which platforms will support this feature?
All of them! I worked on designs for desktop web, mobile web, iOS and android, and all platforms will release in the fall. A huge shoutout to all of the colleagues who made this possible. Designs for web were a collaboration.
In usability testing, we heard from engaged couples about how helpful this tool would be for them. I also moderated a panel on this wedding budgets, in collaboration with our UXR team.
“I would definitely use it as a jumping off point. You really don't know what you need to do until you see [prices] and this is helpful for that.”
We’re so confident in the value of this tool, we’re releasing it as a no regret update this fall.
Budget advisor will take the place of the existing budget tracker feature, still accessible via this feature, and as such we’ll be able to compare traffic from before and after the release. We anticipate seeing a sizable spike.
What are the next steps for this project?
We have a long list of ideas for V2, V3 and beyond! More customizability, the ability to save budgets, the ability to compare budgets across two locations or between two saved budgets, designating splurge and low priority categories. Preset budgets factoring in style or cultural preferences — allowing for an even more robust set of recommendations for vendors.
What are the next steps for this project?
More customizability, the ability to save budgets, the ability to compare budgets across two locations or between two saved budgets. Preset budgets factoring in style or cultural preferences -- allowing for an even more robust set of recommendations for vendors.