One of the best parts of attending Wedding MBA was meeting the businesses that create products and services that make the wedding planner’s job a bit easier. We are excited to introduce one of those businesses to the Planner’s Lounge audience. Below you will find my Q&A session with Pete Buhl, Founder of CalUP. If you prefer to read, you will find a time-stamped synopsis underneath the video. 

[00:01:05.540] – Origin of CalUp

CalUp started as a COVID project, meant to gather different groups of people to meet for outdoor activities. Eventually, it evolved into a general-purpose kind of event tool. They worked with large hotels that were hosting large events, corporate retreats, and a wide variety of different types of events. The focus was on guest engagement, allowing communication, information sharing, and keeping people on track.  CalUp pursued that path for about a year and a half, but the constant feedback they received from event planners was this would be perfect for weddings. CalUp spent about three or four months optimizing the solution for weddings and debuted the new tool at the 2022 Wedding MBA. 

[00:02:46.440] – CalUp App Demo

Pete started by sharing the guest or wedding party member experience when using the CalUp app on their mobile device to navigate their way through a wedding. The mobile app includes: 

• The wedding weekend overview tile is located on the home screen. This is pinned at the top of the user’s thread of events for quick reference. 
• For a wedding party member you might have 15-18 events and a guest might have 2-5. The CalUp experience is completely customizable to each guest or wedding party member based on which events they need to see on the app.
• CalUp is integrated with Google Maps, so you can give precise directions to any user. You can also include meet points and location hints for hard-to-find locations.  
• If an event has a very specific meet point, you can include a visual meet point cue directing participants to the exact location. 
• Add a link to the couple’s wedding website for easy access to their registry, accommodation recommendations, wedding party bio, and anything else you might be interested in before the wedding day. 
• The chat feature allows for group chat within specific events. For example, if the planner needs to reach everyone involved in hair and makeup they can pop in and create a group chat. 
• Users can also direct message and group chat with one another as needed if those settings are enabled by the planner/account administrator. 
• All event group chats and messages are confidential to the people attending that event.
• Photo sharing allows guests to upload or add images to any event that they are a part of. The photos are downloadable by the account administrator so the planner/administrator can provide their clients with the guests captured photos from throughout the wedding. 

[00:07:29.020] – Questions about the CalUp App

If the planner is the owner of the account they can control and customize who has access to each space.

• When you upload the guest lists provided by the couple, you can organize people into groups and easily assign them to the appropriate events. Each invited person will only see the events they have been assigned to by the account administrator. 

Can you update the info in real time on the wedding day? 

• Everything can be updated in real-time. So, if the planner needs to adjust the start time of the wedding, they can update the schedule and send it to all guests. This is helpful for all sorts of situations. If you need to alert guests to construction that might impact travel times or a change of venue due to weather, the planner can send one notice to all impacted guests for instant notification. 

Is the photo sharing confidential? 

• Photos are shared on a per-event basis and are private to each event. Shared photos are not accessible by guests who have not been assigned to that specific event.  

[00:12:24.280] – Dashboard Demo

The planner administrator console is used to create events and publish them to the app. There are several ways to create these events: 

• Using the CalUp Auto Create Tool allows you to select from a template set of wedding activities and quickly generate a full wedding itinerary that you can then edit and adjust for your specific wedding.
• Starting from scratch, you click on Create Event and utilize the CalUp input form to create any type of wedding activity you need.  
• Starting with CalUp Samples allows you to select from specific activity templates to understand how CalUp can be used and to make adjustments based on your needs. 
• Planners can also export past events from a client account and import the events into their master account to build a portfolio and save time with new clients who have weddings at venues you’ve supported in the past.

Once you start building your event, you will begin to add details such as: 

• Location
• Time
• Category
• Guest List
• Wedding website
• Maps
• Special details (hotel check-in, special outings, etc.)

Some additional features of the dashboard: 

• You can click calendar view to make sure everything’s lining up properly. 
• You can send messages to guests or groups of guests both from the app or from the administrator dashboard. 
• All events within the admin dashboard can be customized with a photo/hero image to make the event more visually appealing and match the weddings look and feel.  
• Events can also have a Meet Point/Location Hint image to help the guests find the right place to arrive. 
• You can see which guests have seen the invite on the CalUp Wedding Guest App and it is easy to manage the follow-up to ensure all important people get the CalUp Wedding Guest App and have the correct info for their events.  

CalUp is a simple tool that allows the planner or the couple to keep guests informed and create a better experience for everyone. Everyone has their phones, and maintaining wedding day communication can make the day run so much more smoothly.

[00:25:08.010] – Managing Multiple Events

The last piece is my account overview, this is where the planner would manage all the different weddings that they have going at one time. You can easily look at an overview of all weddings and click in and out of one specific wedding. The setup makes each wedding separate so it is very hard to mistakenly be in the wrong wedding. 

If you want to add a new client account, you simply go to the admin panel and click add an account. The pricing page will open and you select the plan based on the size of the wedding. Your account is created and you are ready to start the setup. 

The planner only pays for the number of events they need and the price covers 12 months of service. At the end of the event, the planner can transfer ownership to the couple if they want to keep access to the photos or chats. 

[00:26:32.450] – How CalUp Differs From a Wedding Website

CalUp is meant to complement the wedding website.  The wedding website is a static place to use for the registry, sharing info leading up to the wedding about travel and accommodations. CalUp is meant for the weeks leading up to the wedding when you need to have more communication with key people and might need to reach out to guests to communicate last-minute changes. Once people are en route to your wedding, it is far more likely they will get a notification on their phones than go back and check the wedding website. 

[00:28:08.680] – How Far Before the Wedding Should CalUp be Used? 

The account subscription lasts for a year, so you can start using it at any time. Since the most helpful time is the weeks leading up to the wedding 60-90 days in advance of the wedding is ideal. 

[00:29:44.320] – How Using CalUp can Give a Planner a Competitive Advantage

Having a tool that makes guest communication and management easier for the couple and the planner can be a great way to create differentiation in the market. There are so many ways that CalUp creates efficiency and allows for less stress in guest and wedding party management. This tool could be a way to differentiate yourself in a competitive market or create an add-on service for an additional revenue stream. 

[00:30:30.680] – What Types of Weddings Could Use CalUp

Any wedding that needs wedding party or guest coordination can benefit from CalUp. Whether it is a large event with many moving parts or a small destination wedding, there are always details that need to be communicated to the guests and the wedding party. 

[00:32:30.750] – What is the Usage of CalUp in Real World Events? 

In our current weddings, 70% of the guest list has downloaded the app, and 85% to 88% of the wedding party uses the platform. 

[00:34:33.590] – Is CalUp Set up Complicated? 

CalUp is designed to be intuitive and easy to use. We have found that the more familiar users get, the more ways they find to utilize the platform. As with any new technology, there is a learning curve but we have tried to make it as easy as possible to use. 

[00:39:58.590] – Special Planner’s Lounge Discount

The Planner’s Lounge audience can sign up for a  free internal use demo account. This is a fully featured account that will allow you to experience the platform and create internal events. These can be used as templates over time or demos for your potential clients. If you choose to purchase CalUp for future events, you will receive a 15% code for all future client accounts. 

Thank you so much for sharing CalUp with us Pete! If you would like to grab your free demo account please click here! You can also learn more about CalUp over on their website and check out their info on our tools and resources page.