My family is a nightmare to coordinate. We are trying to plan a reunion in July for about 15 people coming from all over the country and every time I open the group chat to propose dates, I get bombarded with 50 messages that I cant keep track of. Its honestly becoming a huge point of stress because my parents are retired and have all the time in the world, but my brother and I are both trying to clear PTO at work and my cousins are dealing with school schedules. I need something that actually shows a grid or a calendar view so I dont have to keep scrolling back to find out who said they were busy on the 12th.

I spent all of yesterday looking at options. I read that Doodle is the standard, but honestly, it looks kind of dated and I hate how many ads pop up on the free version. Then someone suggested Google Sheets, but that just feels like a total mess when people inevitably delete the wrong rows or mess up the formatting on their phones. I tried looking into those dedicated family planning apps like Cozi, but it seems like overkill just for a one-week trip and I dont want to force everyone to download a new app that theyll just delete two weeks later.

Does anyone actually have a tool that works for a group this size? We dont have a huge budget, definitely looking for something free or very cheap, and honestly it just needs to be mobile-friendly since half my family refuses to open their laptops on the weekend. If I cant get this sorted by the end of the month, the house we wanted to rent is going to be booked up and then we are stuck with whatever is left. What are you guys using to stop the endless back and forth?