An event planner that follows you through life.

Events & Party Planning · Monsta App

The client.

A founder based in Western Australia with a background in technology. He wasn't a developer, but he understood how products are built. He came in with detailed spreadsheets of event budgets, task timelines, vendor categories, and feature scopes already mapped out. He'd done the homework before we ever spoke.

He was also a dad. That mattered, because the app was built for people exactly like him. Busy, organised, juggling everything, and wanting one tool that just tells you what to do next.

The idea.

A mobile-first event planning app for Australian consumers. Not a marketplace. Not a vendor directory. A personal planning tool that follows you through your life's events. Your kid's first birthday. A christening. A milestone party. A wedding. Christmas.

You start an event and the app generates a structured plan based on when it's happening. It tells you what to do and when. You tick things off, track your budget in real time, manage RSVPs, and keep notes on vendors you're considering.

The positioning was built around long-term use. This isn't a one-time tool you download for a single event and delete. It's designed to stay on your phone and help you plan everything your family has coming up, year after year.

The challenge.

The founder's vision was detailed. Very detailed. Social features, AI-powered tools, integrations, and multi-language support. The challenge was channelling all of that into a lean, testable MVP without losing what made the idea special.

Monetisation was also an open question. The existing competitors in the wedding space are free because they make money from vendor directories. Charging for a planning tool while competing against free required careful positioning. The answer was in the long-term use. You're not paying for a single-use app. You're paying for something that grows with your family.

The decision to go native mobile (iOS and Android) rather than web-first was the right call for the user experience, but it meant a larger development investment. We committed to it because the core user is someone planning on the go, on their phone, between school runs and work.

The process.

Monsta Apps get seven weeks instead of five. The scope and complexity of this project needed every one of them.

Week 1. Discovery and research

I walked the client through a full product research report. We defined the core problem, mapped out user personas, analysed the competition, and sized the market.

The founder's pre-work was exceptional. He'd already written the task timeline templates himself, based on real experience. That saved us weeks and meant we could focus the discovery phase on product strategy rather than content creation.

Weeks 2 to 5. Design

Multiple rounds of screen design, review, and refinement in Figma. We built out the event creation flow, task management, RSVP management, budget tracking, vendor tracking, and supporting features.

The client reviewed every screen, added detailed comments, and I applied them round by round. Eventually I gave him direct Figma access to edit copy himself, which sped things up significantly. The branding was warm and approachable. Soft tones, clean layout. It needed to feel approachable, not clinical.

Weeks 6 and 7. Final polish and handoff

We fine-tuned the intro screens, polished the onboarding flow, and added a vendor management sketch to cover a flow that had emerged during the later design rounds. The extra weeks gave us time to get the copy right, nail the day-of run sheet feature, and make sure the prototype was tight before handing off. By the end, the design was roughly 90% complete and ready for a developer to pick up.

The result.

A comprehensive product research report. A full Figma design covering onboarding, event creation, task management, RSVP management, budget tracking, vendor tracking, and settings. A clickable prototype. A clear MVP scope with future features documented for later versions.

The founder knew exactly what he wanted and had the patience to get it right. He knew his users because he was one. My job was to take all that knowledge and structure it into something a developer could build and real users could test.

What made this project work.

• The founder did exceptional pre-work. He brought detailed spreadsheets, event budgets, and task templates from day one.
• We kept coming back to the long-term use case, which stopped us from building just another wedding app.
• Giving the client direct Figma access for copy changes eliminated back-and-forth and kept us moving fast.
• We were honest about what needed to be in the MVP and what could wait, even when the ideas were good.

Related: App design for events and party planning · What is an MVP? · How the five-week process works