VowDesk Help

Install on iPhone or iPad

Install VowDesk before you set up your plan. On iPhone and iPad the Home Screen app keeps its own storage, separate from Safari, and Safari can clear data for websites you haven't used for 7 days.

1. Open your private link from START HERE in Safari (not a private tab).
2. Tap Share. If it isn't in the toolbar, tap ⋯ first.
3. Choose Add to Home Screen (under View More if you don't see it), then Add.
4. Open VowDesk from your Home Screen and set up your plan there.

Chrome on iPhone works the same way: tap Share in the address bar, then Add to Home Screen.

If the Home Screen app shows the VowDesk product page, paste your private link into the box at the bottom of that page and tap Open VowDesk.

Install on Android

1. Open your private link from START HERE in Chrome.
2. Tap Chrome's menu ⋮, then Install (it may say Add to Home screen or Install app), then Install again.
3. Open VowDesk from its icon on your Home screen.

Install on a Windows, Mac or ChromeOS computer

• Chrome or Edge: open your private link, then choose Install in the address bar. VowDesk opens in its own window and can be pinned to the taskbar or Dock.
• Safari on a Mac: open your private link, then choose File › Add to Dock.
• Firefox: can't install apps. VowDesk works fully in a normal tab; bookmark it.

Open VowDesk with your private link

1. Open START HERE.pdf from your Etsy download and tap Open VowDesk.
2. Use your normal browser, not a private or incognito window: VowDesk keeps your plan in ordinary browser storage.
3. Afterwards VowDesk opens at vowdesk.jykdigital.com without the link. Keep the PDF in case you ever need the link again.

Your link is just for you: please don't share it or post it online.

Start your wedding plan

1. Choose Start my wedding.
2. Answer the four short steps: the two of you, your wedding (date, country, guest count, budget and venue), the shape of your wedding, and how you'd like to plan. Skip this step leaves any of them for later.
3. Choose Create my plan. VowDesk opens on Today with a first checklist, budget categories and your wedding day as the first event.

Every answer can be changed later in Settings. No date yet? Tick We haven't set a date yet and add it in Settings when you have one.

Explore the sample wedding

Choose Explore a sample wedding to try VowDesk with Maya and Alex's plan, already filled in. Nothing you do there affects your own plan. When you're ready, choose Start my wedding in the banner at the top. Your own plan starts empty, and the sample is removed from that device once you create it.

Set your budget and see what a quote really costs

1. Open Money. Budget shows your total, what is committed and what is paid. Use Add budget item for each thing you plan to pay for, and Increase budget when the total changes.
2. Open Vendors and choose Add vendor. A name and a category are enough.
3. On the vendor's page choose Add quote. Enter the quote, then the Service charge, Gratuity, Sales tax and Processing fee from the vendor's small print. True cost adds them up as you type.
4. Link the quote to a budget item, then choose Compare to see up to three quotes side by side, fee by fee.
5. When you've decided, choose Book this quote. Its true cost becomes the contract amount and counts as committed. Add the payment schedule on the vendor's page; Payments lists every due date.

Money a relative has promised goes under Funding. It doesn't raise your budget until you choose Increase budget.

Add guests and track RSVPs

1. Open Guests and choose Add guest. Guests who live together share a household, so one invitation and one address cover them.
2. Already have a spreadsheet? Open the ⋯ menu and choose Import guests. VowDesk shows every row before anything is added.
3. Set each person to Attending, Awaiting or Declined as the answers come in. With more than one event, pick the event at the top of the list first: each event has its own answers.
4. Open Attendance for your Planning headcount: the guests who said yes, plus the answers still outstanding, less the share you expect to decline.

The same ⋯ menu has Export guests (CSV) and Labels (CSV) for addressing envelopes.

Build your seating plan

1. Open Guests, then Seating, and choose Add table for each table, with its number of seats.
2. Guests who are attending wait under Still to seat. Choose Move beside a name and pick a table. On a computer you can also drag a guest onto a table.
3. Or choose Suggest seating: VowDesk shows a suggestion that keeps each household together. Nothing moves until you choose Apply.
4. To keep two people apart or together, open the ⋯ menu and choose Seating rules.

Summary counts the seats, the meals and the dietary needs, and lists anything to look at, such as a table that is over capacity.

Get ready for the wedding day

1. Open Wedding, then Day Of (on a computer it is also under Shortcuts).
2. Under Run-of-show, choose Add to the run-of-show for each moment of the day, with its time and who looks after it.
3. Arrivals lists when each booked vendor arrives. Contacts has a Call and a Text button for everyone you may need.
4. Responsibilities, Tips, Packing and Emergency kit show who does what, which tips to hand over and what to bring.

For the person running the day, open the ⋯ menu and choose Wedding Day Pack to print all of it. Add to calendar saves the day's times as a calendar file.

Print the Planner Book, the Day Pack and the blank book

1. Open Print and export (on a phone it's in the menu) and choose your Paper: A4 or US Letter.
2. Choose Wedding Planner Book for your whole plan as a keepsake, Wedding Day Pack for the day itself, or one of the single reports, such as the Guest List or the Payment Schedule.
3. Check the preview, then choose Print or save as PDF.

Blank planner book prints the same book with empty pages to write in. Your Etsy download also includes it as two PDF files, one for A4 and one for US Letter.

Back up your plan

1. Open Backup and tap Back up plan. The file holds everything, photos included.
2. Keep the .vowdesk file somewhere safe, such as iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive.
3. Back up again after you make changes. VowDesk reminds you when it's been a while.

Anyone with the file can read your plan, so keep it private.

Go back to an earlier day

VowDesk keeps a copy of your plan for each of the last 7 days you used it, as it was when you first opened VowDesk that day.

1. Open Backup and find Earlier days on this device.
2. Choose Restore beside the day you want. VowDesk shows what's inside and offers to back up what you have now before anything changes.

These copies stay on that device only, so they don't replace a backup file.

Move to a new device or to the installed app

1. On the old device (or in Safari), back up your plan.
2. On the new device (or in the installed app), open VowDesk with your private link.
3. Choose Restore from a backup file and pick the file. VowDesk checks it and shows what's inside before anything changes.

Want to keep using both devices? Link them instead, and they stay up to date.

Plan together on more than one device

Link your phone and your partner's, or your own phone and computer, and everyone sees the same plan.

1. On the device that has your plan, open Plan Together (on a phone it's in the menu) and choose Link another device. The first time, name this device and choose Show a code. A QR code and a six-digit code appear; they work for 5 minutes.
2. On the other device, open VowDesk with your private link and choose I already use VowDesk on another device. If VowDesk is already set up there, open Plan Together and choose Enter a code instead; linking replaces what that device has.
3. Choose Scan QR code and point the camera at the first device, or type the six digits. Then choose Link this device (Replace and link on a device that's already set up). You can also choose Copy link on the first device, send the link to the other one and open it there.
4. On the first device, check the name and choose Approve. The other device opens with your plan.
5. From then on, changes made on either device reach the other when both are online.

If you both change the same record while apart, both changes are kept when they are to different details of it; for the same detail, the later change stays. If one of you deletes something the other has just changed, it stays deleted and the change waits under Needs review (Today tells you, and so does Plan Together). There you restore what was deleted, move the change somewhere else or let it go. Nothing waiting there counts in your totals.

To take a device off the list, open Plan Together on another one and choose Remove next to it. It keeps the plan it has and gets nothing new. Restoring a backup on a linked device replaces the plan for everyone: syncing stops on every device, the others keep the plan they have, and you link them again from the device you restored on.

Your plan is encrypted on your devices before it leaves them, and only your linked devices can read it. Nobody can recover it for you, so linking isn't a backup: keep saving a backup file now and then. To stop, open Plan Together and choose Stop syncing on this device; the plan stays on every device.

Optional device sync is included while the sync service is available. Your planner always keeps working on your device, and your backups remain yours.

I see the VowDesk product page instead of my plan

This browser hasn't been unlocked yet, or its cookies were cleared. Open your private link from START HERE again, or paste it into the box at the bottom of the product page. Your plan is still in this browser's storage; opening the link brings it back.

Contact us

Message us on Etsy at JYKDigital. Tell us which device and browser you use. Please never send your backup file or your private link.