WeddingLovely Unveils Planning Site for Brides
Here comes the site. WeddingLovely, a community for brides, walked down the aisle on Monday with a bouquet of tips and tools for wedding planning that were hand-picked from the Web.
Here comes the site. WeddingLovely, a community for brides, walked down the aisle on Monday with a bouquet of tips and tools for wedding planning that were hand-picked from the Web.
Bridal industry pros are well aware that brides-to-be are looking for vendors online. In addition to scanning the newsstands for eye-popping designs from the Knot, Brides, and Martha Stewart and their accompanying websites, brides also turn to smaller wedding blogs like Ruffled and 100 Layer Cake to help with the search process. Pinterest and other social curation sites make it possible for them to mull over the details in a virtual scrapbook, pinning red peonies next to pistachio chiffon to see how they’ll look.
WeddingLovely stuffs all of that into a wedding countdown and checklist for brides. Brides can click on “photographer” and find articles that offer tips for choosing the right vendor as well as links to sites that show where to actually find them. The format is heavy on the links, but consider the alternative: a Google search for “best photographers in San Diego” spits out a list of links, anyway. WeddingLovely has anticipated the right questions and compiled all the answers.
There’s also a tool for creating a wedding website that guests can check for information on hotels and bridal registries, which is still a must for keeping guests in the loop. It might sound old-fashioned in the age of social media, but wrangling hundreds of people is difficult enough without making the less social-savvy of the group join Facebook just to RSVP. Guests are also more likely to offend the people who aren’t invited by discussing the plans on their walls.
Competing sites like the Knot give brides a special forum for getting ideas and venting their frustrations anonymously. Posts range from “should I pick this dress or this one?” to “I feel fat” to “how do I keep a deranged relative from ruining the wedding?” WeddingLovely doesn’t have that kind of board right now, but brides can send questions and tips for other brides to the team in a private message.
According to TechCrunch, WeddingLovely will have more social features in the future, as well as statistical data on budgets and vendor reviews based on the information that brides provide in their profiles.
The service is only free for 14 days, but membership packages start at $14.99 a month and include things like personalized recommendations, access to 1,400 vendors around the world, and a custom wedding domain name. The vendors will also be able to pay to come up higher in the search results.
Co-founders Tracy Osborn and Julia Grace run the site with creative director Marit Snowball in Mountain View, CA. The venture grew out of the incubator and seed fund 500 Startups.
Image by Karramba Production via Shutterstock.
