Shehnaai: Bringing Joy Back to Wedding Planning

It’s their big day, but they barely get to enjoy it

Every newlyweds we asked shared their wedding stories, there was one recurring line:

“We barely got to enjoy it.”

Modern couples were juggling everything: finding venues, negotiating with vendors, tracking budgets, and managing family expectations, all while working full-time jobs. Even on their wedding day.

Indian weddings are rich in tradition and emotion, but for many middle-income couples, the joy of celebration often turned into months of stress and coordination.

That led us to one question:
Can design make wedding planning joyful again?

Middle-income couples were planning million-rupee weddings using checklists and mobile phones

The actions she has to take in order to hire a photographer for her wedding, this whole process can take upto a month.

Through interviews with couples, families, and wedding vendors, we started noticing the same stories everywhere.

“We didn’t want a ₹50 lakh wedding, but we wanted it to feel beautiful.”
“We used Google Sheets for budgets, Instagram for inspiration, and a family WhatsApp group for coordination.”
“Planners felt too expensive and too impersonal.”

Middle-income couples, typically earning between ₹12–18 lakh a year, represented a massive but underserved audience. They didn’t want luxury services or grand productions. They wanted something practical, trustworthy, and easy to use.

Our realisation:
The real challenge was not organising the wedding. It was making the planning experience enjoyable and stress-free.

Shehnaai (™), a planner that plans with you

From these insights, we created Shehnaai, a web-based platform designed to act as a co-pilot for wedding planning.

It helps couples:

• Discover trusted vendors that match their style and budget

• Manage events, checklists, and inspirations in one place

• Track expenses and progress easily

• Personalise every detail without losing control

Our goal was to reimagine wedding planning as an experience that feels guided, flexible, and human, rather than purely transactional or overwhelming.

Designing for emotion and ease

Designing for weddings meant designing for emotion, culture, and collaboration. It required sensitivity toward how families make decisions together, not just how users click through screens.

We explored two early concepts:

1. Inspiration Gallery – A visually rich space to explore vendors, ideas, and budgets.

2. Card Sorting Tool – A gamified way for couples to choose preferences through interactive cards such as “Venue,” “Theme,” and “Decor.”

We designed flows using both the concepts and tested among different types of users.

What testing revealed:

• Users liked the playful nature of the card interface but wanted more control.

• The gallery provided structure but lacked engagement.

• Everyone valued clarity, transparency, and simplicity.

We combined the strengths of both ideas. The final experience guided users step-by-step while keeping the process engaging and expressive.

Final experience highlights:

• Personalised onboarding to define preferences

• Unified dashboard for tracking vendors, tasks, and budgets

• Gamified discovery through card interactions

• Verified vendor profiles with transparent pricing and reviews

This flow outlines the process of booking a photographer on the Shehnaai website.

The Dashboard

Your finalised vendors can be seen on this page categorised

Chats help you communicate with all of your the vendors/potential vendors

A checklist, which can be filtered by the time left to your event

A budget tracker to help you stay in the limits and track expenses along the way

A guest list with their food preference, with the ability to add, remove, download and more

Calendar can help the couple/family add events and follow them without missing

Joy should be part of the plan

Working on Shehnaai taught us that good design is not only about solving problems but also about preserving emotion and meaning.

Weddings will always be complex, unpredictable, and full of feelings. But design can help couples embrace that complexity and still enjoy every part of it.

Shehnaai is not just a planning tool. It is a way to help people stay present in one of the most important moments of their lives.

Team Shehnaai wishes to build this someday soon. Interested people can and should reach out.

The report and the presentation for this project can be find here.

Email me, or schedule a call for a detailed walkthrough.