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Deepak Kumar
Deepak Kumar

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How I’m Building an AI-Powered Event & Wedding Planning Platform

#nextjs #ai #webdev #startup

Planning a wedding or event looks simple from the outside.

But once you start planning, you quickly realize how many things need to be managed:

  • Venue
  • Photography & Videography
  • Catering
  • Decoration
  • Makeup & Bridal
  • DJ & Music
  • Invitations
  • Guest management
  • Budget
  • Vendors
  • Timelines

Today, people often manage all of this through Google searches, Instagram, WhatsApp, phone calls, spreadsheets, and personal recommendations.

I wanted to explore whether we could bring these pieces together into one platform.

That's how PlanToday started.

👉

Wedding Planners & Event Vendors in India | PlanToday

Find wedding planners, venues, photographers, decorators, makeup artists, caterers and event vendors in India. Search by city, service and event type - Plantoday.

favicon plantoday.in

The idea

The basic idea is simple:

«Tell us what you're planning, where you're planning it, your guest count and your approximate budget — and the platform should help you organize the rest.»

For example:

"I am planning a wedding in Delhi
for 300 guests with a budget of ₹15 lakh."

Instead of starting with dozens of searches, the platform can turn this requirement into a structured event plan.

Wedding
│
├── Venue
├── Photography
├── Catering
├── Decoration
├── Makeup
├── DJ & Music
├── Invitations
└── Guest Management

Where AI comes in

One of the interesting parts I'm exploring is using AI to understand natural-language event requirements.

For example:

{
"eventType": "wedding",
"location": "Delhi",
"guestCount": 300,
"budget": 1500000
}

Once we have structured information, the application can use it for recommendations, checklists, budget planning and vendor discovery.

The goal isn't just to add a chatbot.

The goal is to make AI part of the actual planning workflow.

Vendor marketplace

The other side of the platform is the vendor ecosystem.

A user might need:

Wedding
├── Photographer
├── Caterer
├── Decorator
├── Makeup Artist
├── DJ
└── Venue

Each vendor can have a profile containing services, portfolio, location, pricing information, reviews and enquiry options.

This creates two sides of the ecosystem:

         PlanToday
             │
    ┌────────┴────────┐
    │                 │
  Users             Vendors
    │                 │
 Discover          Get Leads
    │                 │
    └────────┬────────┘
             │
          Enquiries
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The engineering challenge

Building a marketplace isn't just about creating CRUD APIs.

There are several interesting technical problems:

Search

Users need to find relevant vendors based on:

  • Location
  • Category
  • Event type
  • Budget
  • Services
  • Availability

SEO

Event planning is highly location-driven.

For example:

Wedding photographers in Delhi
Wedding decorators in Noida
Birthday venues in Gurgaon
Catering services in Dehradun

The challenge is creating useful, unique pages instead of simply generating thousands of similar SEO pages.

AI

The AI layer needs to transform unstructured requirements into structured data that the rest of the application can actually use.

Marketplace

The platform has to provide value to both sides:

Users → discover and plan their events.

Vendors → receive relevant enquiries and grow their business.

The bigger vision

I don't want PlanToday to become just another vendor directory.

The larger vision is an event-planning ecosystem:

User
↓
Choose Event
↓
Set Location & Budget
↓
AI Planning
↓
Discover Vendors
↓
Compare Options
↓
Send Enquiries
↓
Book Vendors
↓
Manage Event

Eventually, AI can assist throughout this entire journey.

What's next?

There are many interesting areas I'm continuing to explore:

  • AI-powered event planning
  • Vendor recommendations
  • Search & personalization
  • Marketplace architecture
  • Lead generation
  • Event analytics
  • Payments & subscriptions
  • Guest management
  • Budget management
  • Large-scale SEO

Building this has been a good reminder that the hardest part of a marketplace isn't building the technology.

It's creating a system where both sides of the marketplace get real value.

I'm building this journey with PlanToday.

👉 https://PlanToday.in

If you're working on marketplaces, AI applications, recommendation systems, or event-tech products, I'd love to hear what you're building and what challenges you're facing.

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