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The latest in wedding planner websites are moving away from the traditional ways of marketing such as film placements, celebrity endorsements or model shoots. They, instead, feature real weddings to connect would-be couples with sellers.
New wedding start-ups such as Wedmegood.com and ShadiSaga.com feature two or three real weddings every week on their site, where couples share their marriage photos in a story format. The posts are tagged with the various vendors whose services were used for that wedding - photographers, caterers, make-up artists, decorators, venue choreographers, etc. Each of these vendors has a detailed portfolio on the website, with information about charges, services and past work.
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Why
According to the founders of these start-ups, featuring of real people helps in faster customer decisions and in getting more business for vendors. For, people relate better to these, getting a better idea of the actual work, instead of the typical portfolio shoots which look doctored. "The content is the hook for us to help consumers get ideas on how to plan their wedding and chose vendors based on the portfolios, direct contact and other information provided on the website," said Anand Shahani, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Wedmegood, which launched in February 2014 and has 2,500 vendors officially listed on its platform.
Himanshu Kapsime, co-founder and CEO of ShadiSaga, which features real weddings through an article format, said these "provide inspiration, as well as advice". ShadiSaga launched a year earlier and provides personal wedding planning services to couples free of cost, apart from acting as a directory of vendors for different services. "Showcasing of real weddings just fast-tracks the decision-making process, since there are lots of pictures and people share their whole stories there," added Kapsime.
Currently, the only options couples have while planning their weddings is to ask friends or family who recently got married for advice or look at celebrity weddings for ideas. These portals give them a third way, of taking clues from weddings based on similar settings as theirs and probably under the same budget.
For vendors, it means a platform to attract potential customer by showcasing their past work either free of cost or for a minimal listing fee. A wedding photographer who is featured on wedding aggregators said that many such portals are being launched recently and all of them are requesting vendors to get real wedding pictures as they ensure eyeballs. "Such platforms, however may not work for established vendors since they may be more popular than the platform itself," said the photographer. The person added that even though these platforms may provide publicity to budding service providers, the listing fee may be too high for them.
The difference
Shahani and Kapsime agree there are lots of websites already providing wedding plan services or are wedding directories. However, they argue, their focus on technology and content sets them apart. "There are two kinds of wedding-related portals, pure-play content sites and the other which are like yellow pages but don't have too much content. One can browse through 500 photographers on those sites but they don't offer too much matrix to decide which one to select," said Shahani, adding they feature some of the biggest names in the industry such as Anita Dongre, Jade By Monika & Karishma, Suneet Verma to upcoming designers like Mad Sam Tin Zin. "We even showcase some of the best stores in local (Delhi) markets like Chandni Chowk, Karol Bagh, etc," he said.
Kapsime added that as the couples also post comments on the vendors, and use of technology links all the past work and comments received by a vendor at one place, it acts as a genuine review system.
Both portals have team members responsible for sourcing and short-listing of wedding stories that can be featured on their portals. However, there are no monetary benefits passed on to the couples by either the portals or the vendors. Wedmegood says they are extremely selective about which weddings they feature and the biggest qualifying criteria are good photographs and an interesting story. Apart from these, ShadiSaga also looks for the aspirational value in the personal stories.
Do the portals have a tough time getting the couple to share their private moments with family and friends on such public platforms? Not at all, say both Shahani and Kapsime. The couples featured are usually the ones who used the services of these websites before their wedding or are brought in by a vendor and are keen to share their wedding stories through such platforms with a larger audience.
Ahead
Wedmegood started off with an initial capital of Rs 50 lakh from friends and family. ShadiSaga got an undisclosed amount of funding from venture capital firm Outbox. Wedmegood charges vendors a fixed listing fee but Shadisaga is currently free for everyone. It will explore monetisation options after six months, once it achieves a certain scale.
Both companies are looking at raising more funds, since they plan to expand operations. During an event organised by The Indus Entrepreneurs recently in the capital, Wedmegood got a funding commitment of Rs 3 crore from investors after an under 10-minute pitch. ShadiSaga is hoping to close a round of funding in the next two months.
