← All ideas IDEA-095 6.2 us life-event-planner developed

Every vendor contract, deposit, and final payment in one timeline — so you never miss a deadline.

Problem

We're 8 months out from our wedding with 12 vendors signed and 3 more to book. Their contracts and deposits live in our email. Final balances are in a Google Sheet. The Knot doesn't track contracts, Zola doesn't ping us when a final payment is due. We just got a 'past due' email from our florist for a balance we thought was due in March, not February. One missed payment per vendor = $200 late fee × 15 vendors = real money.

Audience

First-time US couples planning a $20K–$80K wedding without a professional planner, 8–14 months out from date, juggling 8–15 vendors. Typically 26–34 years old, dual-income, comfortable with apps but want one source of truth across vendors. Subscribe for the planning window (6–14 months), churn after wedding.

Reasoning

Source signals

SIG-20260426-us-life-event-planner-wedding-vendor-payment-deadlines — "Spreadsheets remain unbeatable for budget math, tracking payment schedules. … No app — it's a spreadsheet, so no push notifications for payment deadlines."
SIG-20260426-us-life-event-planner-wedding-rsvp-meal-export — "Guest data management is often the bottleneck of wedding planning." (validates wedding-tool fragmentation)

What we ship

**Core features (MVP)**

Vendor list: add vendor (florist, photographer, venue, caterer, DJ, …) — pre-filled categories
Upload contract PDF → AI extracts (wedding date, deposit amount, deposit due, final balance, final due, cancellation policy)
Payment timeline view: weekly chart with deposits/balances per vendor
Reminders: email free, SMS in subscription, fired at T-14/T-7/T-2
Reconciliation: mark "paid" → tracks amount-paid vs amount-contracted

**Primary user flow**

1. Landing — "Stop missing wedding vendor payments" ($14/mo, 30-day free trial)

2. Sign-up → enter wedding date

3. Add first vendor → upload contract → AI parses → confirm extracted data

4. See timeline with upcoming deadlines + reminder schedule

5. Mark paid → daily/weekly digest

**What it looks like**

**Landing**: hero "12 vendors. 3 deposits. 1 wedding. Don't lose track." + timeline screenshot
**Main screen**: weekly timeline view + vendor sidebar + "Today: $1,800 due to florist"
**Output**: weekly email digest "Next 14 days: 3 payments totaling $4,200"

**MVP build plan (12 days)**

Day 1–2: Postgres schema (vendors, contracts, payments, reminders), auth
Day 3–4: Stripe Subscriptions, free trial
Day 5–7: PDF upload + Claude Sonnet contract-parsing pipeline
Day 8: timeline UI (React + date-fns)
Day 9: Twilio SMS + Resend email reminders
Day 10: reconciliation + weekly digest
Day 11: landing
Day 12: deploy + smoke-test

Reasoning

The vendor-payment SIG is explicit: couples build a Frankenstein stack of 4–6 tools because no single product handles vendor contracts, schedules, deposits, and reconciliation in one timeline. The Knot / Zola / Joy monetize via registry-and-website with ad revenue from vendors — they have an inherent conflict of interest with honest vendor-comparison or payment-tracking. A standalone direct-pay subscription ($14/mo from couple, not from vendor) is incentive-aligned. Stack-fit is the same as IDEA-092 (workspace tool with AI doc parser); codebases could share infra. Recurring fit is natural — 6–14 month subscription window per couple. $112 avg LTV; US wedding TAM 2M/yr supports a 100K-paying-user goal at the right distribution.

Quick competitive read

**The Knot, Zola, Joy**: all-in-one with limited vendor tracking; ad-revenue conflict.
**Aisle Planner** ($30/mo): for professional planners, not self-planning couples.
**Honeybook** ($30+/mo): vendor-side CRM, not couple-side ledger.
**Mint, YNAB**: generic budget apps, not wedding timeline.
**Riley Wedding Planner, Bridebook (UK)**: light on payment tracking.
4–5 indirect competitors with ad-conflict; white space for direct-pay couple-side payment ledger.

Initial pricing hypothesis

$14/mo with 30-day free trial. Avg 6–10 month subscription = $84–$140 LTV. Optional one-time "Pro export" $29 (financial summary PDF for post-wedding bookkeeping). Low relative to $20K–$80K wedding budget.

Distribution hypothesis

Reddit r/weddingplanning (helpful answers + linked tool), Pinterest (visual wedding boards), Instagram #weddingplanning Reels ("I almost missed our florist deadline"), photographer-network referrals. Programmatic SEO secondary ("wedding vendor payment tracker").

Source signals (2)

SIG-20260426-us-life-event-planner-wedding-rsvp-meal-export
SIG-20260426-us-life-event-planner-wedding-vendor-payment-deadlines

Score breakdown

market_size	6/10
pain_severity	5/10
build_feasibility	6/10
speed_to_revenue	5/10
regulatory_safety	9/10
competitive_pressure	9/10
recurring_revenue_fit	3/10

MVP stack

frontend	Cloudflare Pages + React + Tailwind
backend	Railway + FastAPI + Postgres
ai	Claude Sonnet 4.6 via API (vendor-contract PDF parsing → extract dates, amounts, payment schedule)
payments	Stripe Subscriptions ($14/mo wedding-window subscription)
storage	Postgres + R2 (uploaded contracts, encrypted)
external_integrations	['Resend (email reminders)', 'Twilio (SMS reminders, included in subscription)', 'Stripe Connect (optional — pay vendors via platform, future addon)']

Estimated build: 12 days

Regulatory

clean

No hard disqualifiers from D-001..D-014. Personal-finance-tracker / vendor-contract-organizer SaaS. No card storage (Stripe Subscriptions handles vault). No fintech license — we track payments due, we do not move money on behalf of users (Stripe Connect is mentioned only as a future addon — see flag below). No PHI. No regulated content. No children's data (audience is adults 26–34). ADVISORY (Stripe Connect future addon — defer outside MVP): "Pay vendors via platform" via Stripe Connect would change the regulatory profile materially. Stripe Connect Custom or Express requires KYB/KYC on connected accounts, money-transmission analysis (Stripe handles in most US states under Stripe's licensing umbrella, but FinCEN MSB registration may be required depending on flow design), and 1099-K issuance for connected vendors hitting threshold ($600 federal as of 2024 / now phased; state thresholds lower in MA, VT, IL). RECOMMENDATION: keep Stripe Connect strictly out of MVP. If pursued post-launch, re-run regulatory check against D-005 (KYC-heavy fintech) — depending on architecture, Stripe Connect Standard (vendor uses own Stripe account) is light-touch and OK; Stripe Connect Custom (we hold funds) crosses into D-005 territory. ADVISORY (CTIA 10DLC for SMS): SMS-reminder add-on requires Twilio brand registration + campaign approval (10DLC). Allow 7-14 days before launch. ADVISORY (clean — note from risk profile): the wedding/event-planning category is "clean" but the broader market has known PLATFORM-CONFLICT economics — incumbents (The Knot, Zola, Joy) earn ad-revenue from vendors. Our direct-pay subscription model ($14/mo from couple) avoids the conflict. To preserve the trust positioning, do NOT accept vendor advertising or vendor-side referral payments in the MVP. If vendor referrals are added later, disclose in pricing: "Vendor X paid for this listing — we do not adjust your reminders or recommendations based on vendor relationships." Plain transparency. ADVISORY (consumer subscription clarity — FTC Negative Option Rule, effective 2024-2025): the 30-day free trial → $14/mo recurring conversion must comply with FTC's "click-to-cancel" rule: (a) cancellation flow must be at least as easy as signup; (b) clear pre-trial-end reminder email; (c) no dark-pattern friction in cancel UI. Some states (CA SB-313, NY) have stricter auto-renewal disclosure requirements — show full renewal terms before checkout. ADVISORY (PDF contract uploads contain modest PII — vendor name, couple names, wedding date, financial amounts). Encrypted-at-rest in R2 + retention until subscription ends + 90 days, then auto-purge. Region: us — CCPA + state privacy laws apply. No GDPR exposure.

Competitors (0)

No competitors profiled yet.