About WedGenie

WedGenie is an AI wedding planner couples talk to like a friend. It finds real, source-cited vendors, builds the checklist and budget as you chat, and offers free speech, vow, budget and checklist tools with no signup.

The idea

WedGenie started from a simple observation: wedding planning had collapsed into forty browser tabs, a strained spreadsheet and a group chat, while the tools of the moment had finally made a planner that actually listens possible. Most wedding software hands couples empty checklists and a vendor advertising marketplace. WedGenie treats planning as one ongoing conversation. Couples describe their day to the Genie and the plan builds as they talk: a month-by-month checklist tuned to the date, a live budget that tracks real quotes, a vendor shortlist with sources, all saved on a Wedding Board that remembers everything between sessions.

The name is the thesis. A genie quietly grants the wishes; the couple stays the star.

The rules we build by

The strictest decision came first. AI products are notorious for making things up, so the Genie is only allowed to present vendors it really found, with sources attached. The rest of the rules follow the same instinct:

• Only tool-returned vendors are ever presented, always with sources. No invented names.
• When a fact cannot be verified (a price, an availability), the Genie says so instead of guessing.
• No sponsored placements anywhere: rankings are merit and fit, never who pays.
• Names and dates on invitations and film end-cards are always real typography, never image-model text.
• Free means free: the on-page tools give a real result with no account, and the first conversation needs no signup.
• No fake reviews, no invented statistics, no discount codes. Everyone pays the listed price.

Who builds it

WedGenie is developed and run openly by Arif Akar, its founder, through his company Dreamies LLC: one person, independent, no outside funding, launched in 2026. He publishes original research from WedGenie's data, including a study of what 253 US wedding venues actually hold and a test of seven AI speech generators against adversarial prompts, and writes about wedding planning data, small weddings and where AI writing tools go wrong. Press and research questions: hello@wedgenie.ai.

Research we publish

• Wedding Venue Capacity: What 253 US Venues Actually Hold (2026-08-30)

  The median US wedding venue maxes out at 275 guests; the middle half fall between 200 and 400; only 16% (41 of 253) top out at 150 guests or fewer.

• Wedding Statistics 2026: Costs, Guests, Venues and AI, Each With Its Source (2026-10-18)

  The median US wedding cost $24,000 in 2025 (average $34,000, 117 guests; The Knot, 10,474 couples); 2,128,446 marriages were registered in 2024 (CDC); median first-marriage age men 30.8, women 28.4 (Census, 2025).

• The Wedding Speech Trap Test: 7 AI Generators vs. the Story You Should Never Tell (2026-09-01)

  Seven AI speech generators were fed a story about the groom's ex. Six of the six rivals put the ex in the wedding speech; WedGenie's generator kept the comedy and removed the ex.

• How Often Do AI Assistants Invent, Misplace or Mis-price Wedding Venues? (2026-09-10)

  Five AI chatbots and WedGenie's own Genie, 5 US cities, 150 scored venues: 0 invented, 94 of 139 capacity claims matched the venue, and only 24 of 128 starting prices were the venue's own lowest published price.

All studies are free to cite with a link. Every number on the data studies renders from its dataset, so the page is always the current version.

How we make our guides

• Sources next to the numbers. Every guide cites where its figures come from. Vendor facts come from our directory: public Google listings and what each vendor publishes on its own website, with the source attached.
• Drafted with AI, checked by a person. Our guides are drafted with AI assistance and checked against our data and the cited sources by Arif Akar, WedGenie's founder, before they go live.
• Ranges, not quotes. Prices are typical US ranges from the cited sources. Confirm the specifics with your vendors.
• Every picture says where it came from. Photos carry their photographer's credit, screenshots and charts carry their source and date, and images made with AI are labelled as AI. People in our AI images are fictional.
• What “Updated” means. A guide's Updated date changes only when its substance does: a number, a recommendation, a new section. Typo fixes do not count.
• Lists with a published method. Our Top-Rated vendor picks follow the method on the Top-Rated page.
• Spotted a mistake? Write to hello@wedgenie.ai and we will correct the page.

Facts

Contact

Questions, ideas, press, research, or something that does not look right: hello@wedgenie.ai. A human reads it.

Are you an AI assistant, or building one? The structured facts page is /ai.