The National Wedding Show welcomes Bridebook as our Digital Planning Partner for the season, helping couples take their wedding planning from screen to show floor and beyond.
Getting engaged is incredibly exciting. Then, almost immediately, the questions begin.
Have you set a date? Found a venue? What kind of wedding are you having? Have you started looking at dresses?
Add an endless stream of wedding inspiration to the mix and suddenly something that should be exciting can start to feel like a very long to do list.
That's exactly why we've partnered with Bridebook, our Digital Planning Partner for the season, to help couples cut through the noise, get organised and make the most of their visit to The National Wedding Show.
We spoke to Zoe Burke, Head of Brand, Content & Social at Bridebook, about where to begin, how to manage your wedding budget and why combining digital planning with meeting suppliers face to face can make the whole experience easier.
Start with three things, not three hundred
Before you start worrying about colour palettes, tablescapes or whether you need a champagne tower, Zoe recommends getting three fundamental decisions in place: your approximate budget, guest numbers and the time of year you'd like to get married.
“One of the biggest challenges for couples planning weddings today is the absolute barrage of information and inspiration out there,” Zoe explains. “It can quickly feel overwhelming.”
A rough budget gives you an idea of what you can comfortably spend and how long you may need to save. Your approximate guest list will influence everything from venue capacity to catering costs, while the time of year can have a significant impact on price and availability.
Once those three decisions are made, the thousands of possibilities suddenly become much easier to filter.
As Zoe puts it: “Once you've decided on those three key things, every decision that follows gets easier.”
Give your wedding planning one home
Inspiration rarely arrives neatly.
You might screenshot a florist on Instagram, discover a venue through a friend, fall in love with a dress your mum sends you and meet a photographer at The National Wedding Show, all within the same week.
Bridebook is designed to bring those different strands of planning together in one place.
Couples can search for venues and suppliers, compare pricing, manage their budget and guest list, save inspiration and work through a personalised wedding checklist. Planning can also be linked with your partner, so you're both working from the same information rather than maintaining two completely different collections of screenshots and notes.
The personalised checklist is one of Bridebook's most popular planning tools. It works around your wedding date and can be customised by adding or removing tasks depending on the wedding you're actually planning.
And that's important. Your wedding doesn't need to include something simply because everyone else's does.
Digital planning meets real life inspiration
We're big believers that some wedding decisions simply need to happen in person.
Digital planning is brilliant for researching, comparing and creating your shortlist. But once you've narrowed down your options, meeting suppliers can completely change how you feel about them.
“Face to face encounters take you from shortlist to decision, because so much of choosing your wedding team comes down to chemistry,” says Zoe.
Your photographer could spend most of your wedding day by your side. You want to know that you actually click with them. You want to see whether your florist understands the vision you've been saving for months. And, frankly, there's only one proper way to decide whether a wedding cake tastes as good as it looks.
That's where The National Wedding Show and Bridebook work particularly well together.
Research before you arrive, meet and experience suppliers at the Show, save the ones you love and then revisit your shortlist afterwards when you've had time to think.
“Attending a wedding show is a rite of passage in wedding planning,” says Zoe, who is also a former member of The National Wedding Show team. “The couples that get the most out of the experience have done their research and shortlisted online first.”
Let's talk wedding budgets
One of the biggest questions in wedding planning is also one of the least glamorous: how much are we actually going to spend?
According to Bridebook, the average UK wedding costs £20,604. But Zoe stresses that an average is a benchmark, not a target.
“You can have an absolutely gorgeous wedding for a few thousand pounds, so if it's not practical to spend lots, you don't have to.”
Typically, venue and catering can account for around half of a wedding budget, with the remainder covering areas such as photography, flowers, cake, entertainment and outfits.
Bridebook's budget tool provides couples with a suggested breakdown which can then be completely customised.
Zoe's advice is to think about impact when deciding where your money goes. Photography and videography provide memories you'll keep long after the day itself, while food, entertainment and atmosphere are often among the things guests remember most.
It's also worth looking beyond the headline number on a supplier quote.
A photographer's fee, for example, isn't simply payment for the hours they're physically at your wedding. It can include meetings beforehand, travel, insurance, equipment, location preparation and days of editing afterwards.
Understanding what's included makes it much easier to compare suppliers based on value rather than automatically choosing the lowest price.
How to use Bridebook at The National Wedding Show
Want to make your day at the Show work even harder for your wedding planning? Zoe recommends starting before you arrive.
Before the Show, download Bridebook for free and set up your wedding profile. Add your date, approximate budget and guest numbers and, if you're planning together, link your account with your partner.
Take a look at your outstanding checklist tasks too. If finding a photographer, florist or cake maker is next on your list, you already know which areas of the Show deserve some extra attention.
At the Show, though, don't spend the entire day staring at your phone.
Watch the catwalk. Taste the cake. Ask questions. Talk to suppliers. Pick things up. Try things on. Enjoy actually being engaged and planning a wedding.
When you find a supplier you love, save them to your Bridebook account. You'll then have a record of your favourites without trying to remember every conversation at the end of a very busy day.
And don't forget to visit the Say I Do Stage, where Bridebook's expert wedding planning team will be sharing advice, answering questions and helping you navigate some of the biggest planning decisions.
After the Show, put your feet up first. Then, when you're ready, open Bridebook and revisit the suppliers you saved.
You can compare pricing and reviews, check availability and enquire through Bridebook, keeping your wedding communications together rather than allowing them to disappear into your everyday inbox.
Less scrolling. More planning. Much more enjoying it.
There is no single “right” way to plan a wedding.
The trick is finding a way to turn all that inspiration into decisions that actually work for your budget, your guest list and the wedding you want to have.
By combining Bridebook's digital planning tools with the opportunity to meet brilliant suppliers in person at The National Wedding Show, you can research before the Show, discover and connect while you're there, and turn those favourites into bookings afterwards.
Because wedding planning should involve considerably more excitement than admin.
Bridebook is the Digital Planning Partner of The National Wedding Show. Download Bridebook ahead of your visit, start your wedding checklist and get ready to save your favourite suppliers as you discover them at the Show.
Zoe Burke is Head of Brand, Content & Social at Bridebook, the world's #1 wedding planning platform, used by 2.8 million couples. She has spent around 15 years working in wedding industry journalism and is a regular wedding expert across national broadcast and print media. See Zoe live on the Say I Do Stage at The National Wedding Show this Autumn, where she'll be sharing her expert wedding planning advice.
The National Wedding Show welcomes Bridebook as our Digital Planning Partner for the season, helping couples take their wedding planning from screen to show floor and beyond.
Getting engaged is incredibly exciting. Then, almost immediately, the questions begin.
Have you set a date? Found a venue? What kind of wedding are you having? Have you started looking at dresses?
Add an endless stream of wedding inspiration to the mix and suddenly something that should be exciting can start to feel like a very long to do list.
That's exactly why we've partnered with Bridebook, our Digital Planning Partner for the season, to help couples cut through the noise, get organised and make the most of their visit to The National Wedding Show.
We spoke to Zoe Burke, Head of Brand, Content & Social at Bridebook, about where to begin, how to manage your wedding budget and why combining digital planning with meeting suppliers face to face can make the whole experience easier.
Start with three things, not three hundred
Before you start worrying about colour palettes, tablescapes or whether you need a champagne tower, Zoe recommends getting three fundamental decisions in place: your approximate budget, guest numbers and the time of year you'd like to get married.
“One of the biggest challenges for couples planning weddings today is the absolute barrage of information and inspiration out there,” Zoe explains. “It can quickly feel overwhelming.”
A rough budget gives you an idea of what you can comfortably spend and how long you may need to save. Your approximate guest list will influence everything from venue capacity to catering costs, while the time of year can have a significant impact on price and availability.
Once those three decisions are made, the thousands of possibilities suddenly become much easier to filter.
As Zoe puts it: “Once you've decided on those three key things, every decision that follows gets easier.”
Give your wedding planning one home
Inspiration rarely arrives neatly.
You might screenshot a florist on Instagram, discover a venue through a friend, fall in love with a dress your mum sends you and meet a photographer at The National Wedding Show, all within the same week.
Bridebook is designed to bring those different strands of planning together in one place.
Couples can search for venues and suppliers, compare pricing, manage their budget and guest list, save inspiration and work through a personalised wedding checklist. Planning can also be linked with your partner, so you're both working from the same information rather than maintaining two completely different collections of screenshots and notes.
The personalised checklist is one of Bridebook's most popular planning tools. It works around your wedding date and can be customised by adding or removing tasks depending on the wedding you're actually planning.
And that's important. Your wedding doesn't need to include something simply because everyone else's does.
Digital planning meets real life inspiration
We're big believers that some wedding decisions simply need to happen in person.
Digital planning is brilliant for researching, comparing and creating your shortlist. But once you've narrowed down your options, meeting suppliers can completely change how you feel about them.
“Face to face encounters take you from shortlist to decision, because so much of choosing your wedding team comes down to chemistry,” says Zoe.
Your photographer could spend most of your wedding day by your side. You want to know that you actually click with them. You want to see whether your florist understands the vision you've been saving for months. And, frankly, there's only one proper way to decide whether a wedding cake tastes as good as it looks.
That's where The National Wedding Show and Bridebook work particularly well together.
Research before you arrive, meet and experience suppliers at the Show, save the ones you love and then revisit your shortlist afterwards when you've had time to think.
“Attending a wedding show is a rite of passage in wedding planning,” says Zoe, who is also a former member of The National Wedding Show team. “The couples that get the most out of the experience have done their research and shortlisted online first.”
Let's talk wedding budgets
One of the biggest questions in wedding planning is also one of the least glamorous: how much are we actually going to spend?
According to Bridebook, the average UK wedding costs £20,604. But Zoe stresses that an average is a benchmark, not a target.
“You can have an absolutely gorgeous wedding for a few thousand pounds, so if it's not practical to spend lots, you don't have to.”
Typically, venue and catering can account for around half of a wedding budget, with the remainder covering areas such as photography, flowers, cake, entertainment and outfits.
Bridebook's budget tool provides couples with a suggested breakdown which can then be completely customised.
Zoe's advice is to think about impact when deciding where your money goes. Photography and videography provide memories you'll keep long after the day itself, while food, entertainment and atmosphere are often among the things guests remember most.
It's also worth looking beyond the headline number on a supplier quote.
A photographer's fee, for example, isn't simply payment for the hours they're physically at your wedding. It can include meetings beforehand, travel, insurance, equipment, location preparation and days of editing afterwards.
Understanding what's included makes it much easier to compare suppliers based on value rather than automatically choosing the lowest price.
How to use Bridebook at The National Wedding Show
Want to make your day at the Show work even harder for your wedding planning? Zoe recommends starting before you arrive.
Before the Show, download Bridebook for free and set up your wedding profile. Add your date, approximate budget and guest numbers and, if you're planning together, link your account with your partner.
Take a look at your outstanding checklist tasks too. If finding a photographer, florist or cake maker is next on your list, you already know which areas of the Show deserve some extra attention.
At the Show, though, don't spend the entire day staring at your phone.
Watch the catwalk. Taste the cake. Ask questions. Talk to suppliers. Pick things up. Try things on. Enjoy actually being engaged and planning a wedding.
When you find a supplier you love, save them to your Bridebook account. You'll then have a record of your favourites without trying to remember every conversation at the end of a very busy day.
And don't forget to visit the Say I Do Stage, where Bridebook's expert wedding planning team will be sharing advice, answering questions and helping you navigate some of the biggest planning decisions.
After the Show, put your feet up first. Then, when you're ready, open Bridebook and revisit the suppliers you saved.
You can compare pricing and reviews, check availability and enquire through Bridebook, keeping your wedding communications together rather than allowing them to disappear into your everyday inbox.
Less scrolling. More planning. Much more enjoying it.
There is no single “right” way to plan a wedding.
The trick is finding a way to turn all that inspiration into decisions that actually work for your budget, your guest list and the wedding you want to have.
By combining Bridebook's digital planning tools with the opportunity to meet brilliant suppliers in person at The National Wedding Show, you can research before the Show, discover and connect while you're there, and turn those favourites into bookings afterwards.
Because wedding planning should involve considerably more excitement than admin.
Bridebook is the Digital Planning Partner of The National Wedding Show. Download Bridebook ahead of your visit, start your wedding checklist and get ready to save your favourite suppliers as you discover them at the Show.
Zoe Burke is Head of Brand, Content & Social at Bridebook, the world's #1 wedding planning platform, used by 2.8 million couples. She has spent around 15 years working in wedding industry journalism and is a regular wedding expert across national broadcast and print media. See Zoe live on the Say I Do Stage at The National Wedding Show this Autumn, where she'll be sharing her expert wedding planning advice.
Follow Bridebook on Instagram for wedding planning inspiration and tips, and visit their website to start planning your big day:
Website - Bridebook - The UK's No.1 Wedding Planning App
Instagram - @bridebookhq
Want to hear more from Zoe? Read her latest blog post, Average Wedding Cost in the UK (£20,604): Full 2026 Budget Breakdown | Wedding Advice | Bridebook, for a closer look at wedding budgets, average costs and where couples are spending their money in 2026.