---
title: "How to use ChatGPT to plan your wedding, with prompts"
description: "ChatGPT prompts to copy for a wedding budget split, guest list cuts, venue criteria, a first venue email and a timeline, and where ChatGPT falls short."
canonical: https://getaisley.com/guides/how-to-use-chatgpt-to-plan-a-wedding
last_updated: 2026-10-12
---

# How to use ChatGPT to plan your wedding, with prompts

> ChatGPT prompts to copy for a wedding budget split, guest list cuts, venue criteria, a first venue email and a timeline, and where ChatGPT falls short.

Published 12 October 2026, by Dominika, Co-founder of Aisley. Canonical: https://getaisley.com/guides/how-to-use-chatgpt-to-plan-a-wedding

ChatGPT is a good planning partner for the parts of a wedding that are thinking: splitting a budget, finding a fair way to cut a guest list, turning a vague brief into a venue checklist, drafting the first email. It is weaker at the parts that are correspondence, and it can be confidently wrong about venues and prices.

This guide gives you prompts to copy for five real planning jobs, says where ChatGPT falls short, and shows what changes when you connect Aisley. Every prompt works in Claude too. We build Aisley, so read the last section with that in mind.

## Set ChatGPT up before the first prompt

Most bad wedding answers come from a missing fact: the guest count, the region, what the budget covers. Give ChatGPT the facts once and every later answer starts from them. A Project is the tidiest place for this, because its instructions and files apply to every chat inside it.

```text
Here are the facts of our wedding. Use them in everything I ask, and ask me before you assume anything that isn't here.
Where: [town or region], [England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland]. When: [month and year, or a window]. Guests: about [number] for the day and [number] in the evening. Budget: £[total], which covers [what it includes, such as outfits and rings]. Ceremony: [civil, religious or celebrant]. The feel: [three or four words, such as relaxed, outdoors, long tables]. Must haves: [such as step-free access, or a vegetarian menu].
Answer in British English, with prices in pounds including VAT.
```

Keep real names out of it where you can. First names or initials do the job for a guest list, and nobody's address needs to go in.

## Prompt 1: split the budget

Ask for a split by category, with the reasoning shown, and tell it not to invent prices. Then check the result against published averages: [the UK budget breakdown](https://getaisley.com/guides/wedding-budget-breakdown) has typical percentages and worked examples, and [what a UK wedding costs](https://getaisley.com/guides/how-much-does-a-wedding-cost-uk) has the regional figures.

```text
Split our £[total] budget for [number] day guests in [region] across the usual UK categories: venue and catering, photography and video, outfits and rings, flowers and styling, music, stationery and cake, transport and extras, and a contingency.
Put it in a table with a percentage and a pound figure for each. Show what the venue and catering line works out to per guest. Then tell me which two lines are most likely to run over for a wedding like ours, and why.
Don't make up supplier prices. Where you aren't sure what something costs in [region], say so and give a range.
```

## Prompt 2: cut the guest list

Every guest costs £180 to £280 once food, drink and furniture are counted, so the list is where budgets are won. ChatGPT is useful here as a neutral party: it can turn your tiers into rules and count what each rule removes. Leave the decisions about people to the two of you. [How to cut your wedding guest list](https://getaisley.com/guides/how-to-cut-wedding-guest-list) has the tier method this prompt uses.

```text
We have [number] names and need to get to [target]. Each name has a tier: A, the day would feel wrong without them; B, we really want them there; C, we feel we ought to invite them. Here is the list: [paste first names or initials, each with a tier, and whether they would bring a partner or children].
Suggest rules we can apply to everyone, such as plus-ones only for partners we have met, or adults only, and show how many names each rule removes. Don't cut anyone by name. Give us the rules and the numbers, and we will decide.
```

## Prompt 3: turn your brief into venue criteria

Asking ChatGPT for venue names is where it goes wrong most often (more on that below). Asking it for the checklist you will judge venues against works well. [How to choose a wedding venue](https://getaisley.com/guides/how-to-choose-a-wedding-venue) explains the shortlist method, and [25 questions to ask a wedding venue](https://getaisley.com/guides/questions-to-ask-wedding-venue) covers what to ask once you are talking to one.

```text
Turn our wedding facts into a venue checklist. Split it into dealbreakers, where a venue that fails one is out, and nice-to-haves we can weigh. Include seated capacity for [number], our venue and catering budget of £[amount], travel time from [place], whether the venue is licensed for ceremonies, rooms to stay, the evening curfew, and whether we get the venue to ourselves.
Then give me a table to fill in as we look at venues: one row per venue, one column per criterion, and a column for the date we asked and the date they answered.
```

## Prompt 4: a first email to a venue

A first enquiry should be short and ask for the two things that rule a venue in or out: whether your date is free, and the full price for your numbers. [How to email wedding venues](https://getaisley.com/guides/how-to-email-wedding-venues) has templates for the second and third emails too.

```text
Write a first email to [venue] about our wedding. We are looking at [a Saturday in June 2027, or an exact date], with about [number] day guests and [number] in the evening, and around £[amount] for the venue and catering.
Ask whether the date is free, and for full pricing for those numbers including VAT and any service charge. Keep it under 120 words, warm and plain, in British English, and sign it from [your names].
```

Before you send it, read it once for anything the venue's own website already answers. Nothing tells a venue you sent the same email to twenty others faster.

## Prompt 5: a planning timeline

Give ChatGPT today's date as well as the wedding date, or it will plan from the wrong starting point. Check its legal steps against [giving notice for a wedding](https://getaisley.com/guides/giving-notice-wedding-uk): in England and Wales you give notice at least 29 full days before the ceremony and no more than 12 months ahead, and general assistants get this wrong. [The month by month planning timeline](https://getaisley.com/guides/wedding-planning-timeline) is the version to check against.

```text
Today is [date]. Our wedding is on [date] in [England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland]. Build a month by month planning timeline from now to the day, as a table: when to book the venue, photographer, music, caterer if separate, outfits, invitations and accommodation, and when to give notice at the register office.
Flag anything that is already late for a date this close, and tell us what to do first this week.
```

The same approach works for the day itself. Give it the ceremony time, the travel between places and sunset, and ask for a running order, then compare it with [a wedding day timeline that works](https://getaisley.com/guides/wedding-day-timeline).

## Where ChatGPT falls short

ChatGPT can do more than it could a year ago. It remembers across chats, keeps a project's files and instructions together, searches the web, and on paid plans with Gmail connected it can [send an email once you approve it](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6825453-chatgpt-release-notes). The gaps that matter for a wedding are elsewhere.

- It can be wrong about venues. Ask for barn venues near Bath and some answers may be closed, renamed or invented, with prices from an old brochure. OpenAI's own help pages say ChatGPT [can sound confident even when it is wrong](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8313428-does-chatgpt-tell-the-truth) and that [search results can be outdated](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/9237897-chatgpt-search). Open each venue's own website before it goes on your list.
- It doesn't run the correspondence. Couples enquire with [4 to 10 venues before booking one](https://partners.bridebook.com/uk/wedding-report-2026), and each enquiry becomes a thread of dates, quotes and questions. ChatGPT sends the email you ask for. It doesn't keep a record of which venue said what, who is waiting on whom, or which quote came in over budget.
- It doesn't notice silence. A venue that stops answering stays unanswered until one of you remembers, unless you build reminders for every venue yourself.
- The budget stays a table in a chat. When the quotes arrive, updating the split from prompt 1 is your job.
- The legal steps need checking. Notice periods and fees differ between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and a general answer can mix them up.

## Connect Aisley to ChatGPT

Aisley is an [AI wedding planner](https://getaisley.com/) that does the correspondence, and it connects to ChatGPT and Claude. Once it is connected, you ask in the same chat and Aisley does the job in your wedding:

- Venue search that returns real venues with why each fits your brief, saved to a shortlist with a status for each.
- Enquiries drafted to one venue or several, shown to you in full in the chat, and sent from your own Gmail once you confirm.
- Replies read as they arrive, with the price and dates put on your shortlist and an answer drafted for you.
- A follow-up drafted when a venue has been quiet for a week, sent when you say so.
- The budget, tasks, notes and moodboards, all readable and editable from the chat.

In ChatGPT, the shortlist and the vendor conversations also open as cards in the conversation. [Plan your wedding in ChatGPT](https://getaisley.com/chatgpt-wedding-planner) explains what you get, and [the developer page](https://getaisley.com/developers) has the connection steps. To compare Aisley with the other tools, see [the best AI wedding planners in 2026](https://getaisley.com/guides/ai-wedding-planners-uk).

## Quick answers

### Can ChatGPT plan a wedding?

It can do the thinking: the budget split, rules for the guest list, venue criteria, first emails and timelines, as in the prompts above. It can't book anything, and on its own it doesn't keep track of the venues you are talking to. Treat its answers as a first draft and check facts with the venue or an official source.

### Can ChatGPT find wedding venues?

It can search the web for them and will often find real ones. It can also return a closed venue, an old price or a venue that doesn't exist, so check every name on the venue's own website. A venue search built for the job, like Aisley's, returns real venues with their websites and says why each fits your brief.

### Can ChatGPT email wedding venues for me?

On paid plans with Gmail or Outlook connected, ChatGPT can draft an email and send it once you approve it, on the web. It doesn't track the replies across venues. With Aisley connected, ChatGPT can send enquiries to several venues from your Gmail, and Aisley reads the replies and drafts the follow-ups.

### Is the free version of ChatGPT enough?

For the prompts in this guide, yes: Projects and web search are on the free plan. Sending email from ChatGPT needs a paid plan.

### Should we use ChatGPT or Claude?

Either. Every prompt here works in Claude, which has projects and memory too, and Aisley connects to both. Claude's free plan allows one custom connector, which is enough for Aisley, and [Aisley in Claude](https://getaisley.com/claude-wedding-planner) shows how to add it.