Sure the latest initiatives from the Teslas, Apples and Googles of the industry tend to dominate the tech news space — and with good reason. Still, the tech titans aren’t the only ones bringing innovation to the sector.
In an effort to highlight up-and-coming startups, Built In has launched The Future 5 across eight major U.S. tech hubs. Each quarter, we will feature five tech startups, nonprofits or entrepreneurs in each of these hubs who just might be working on the next big thing. You can check out last quarter’s Austin round-up here.
* * *
Rumaiza Fathima has been planning weddings for years. Prior to launching her wedding marketplace Wedy, she worked in the luxury destination wedding industry and planned big-budget weddings for professional athletes and celebrities. It wasn’t until Fathima planned her own wedding that she realized how outdated the industry was. It was in desperate need of tech upgrades, she said.
Planning a wedding typically involves calling venues and filling out online contact forms for photographers, caters, DJs and other vendors. Then couples wait to hear back from each vendor about their availability and pricing. It is a long process with very little transparency and endless back-and-forth communication.
“We’re in 2022. You can buy a $100,000 Tesla online today and you can go on Zillow and price a $2 million home, but I cannot book a wedding venue that’s down the street here in downtown Austin,” Fathima, Wedy founder, told Built In.
Wedy aims to ease this process with its wedding planning marketplace and app that simplifies booking and paying wedding vendors. According to Fathima, the platform can reduce a 12-month process down to two days worth of planning.
Through the platform, couples looking to get married can book everything from venues and photographers to florists and other services in a similar fashion to booking a stay on Airbnb. When booking a service on Wedy, couples can see the client’s availability and pricing. This provides transparency to the wedding industry.
Traditionally, every startup in the wedding business has served the one-time customer, which is the couple. ... We actually serve the wedding business owners.”
Whether users select a few services or an all-inclusive package, Wedy also simplifies payment processing. Couples have two options for paying for their selected services. They can either pay half up front and the remainder at a later date, or they can get financing through Wedy and compile their venue costs and other services into a monthly payment.
“We help engaged couples to find and book these wedding packages in real-time,” Fathima said. “We’re able to do that because our platform is actually a B2B wedding business software that enables these professionals to sell packages, create invoices and manage their bookings in a centralized place. So it’s basically a B2B2C wedding marketplace.”
Working with small businesses that provide wedding services is Wedy’s main business model, according to Fathima. As such, the company works differently than other wedding planning platforms. The main differentiator is that Wedy doesn’t charge businesses to list their services on the platform; instead, it charges a fee once the service is booked. According to Fathima, other platforms charge businesses as much as $500 to be featured as a wedding service provider.
“Traditionally, every startup in the wedding business has served the one-time customer, which is the couple. They get married and then they move on with their life,” Fathima said. “But we actually serve the wedding business owners because that’s where our repeatability comes from as a marketplace.”
Currently, small businesses and contractors in Colorado, California, Hawaii and Texas can list their services on Wedy. Once on the app, they can set their schedules and pricing. As they continue booking weddings and receiving reviews on the platform, Wendy’s algorithm and team will highlight the vendor more often, increasing its chances of being booked. This provides quality control and ensures couples are booking reliable professionals, Fathima said.
Wedy has paid out over half a million dollars in vendor earnings to businesses using the marketplace, according to Fathima.
Since launching in February of 2020, Wedy has raised $285,000 from angel investors, friends and family. In that time, it has also grown its team to eight people.
Fathima said the platform will expand to New York and several other markets by Q1 of 2023. The company is also in the process of raising a seed funding round.
