21/02/2024
It’s 2024, but booking a wedding still feels like it’s 1999.
I’ve been a wedding photographer in RVA for over 10 years now, and the way that couples and vendors find each other hasn’t changed a bit. This is crazy to me.
Why are couples still scrolling through long lists of vendors having no idea who is available, in budget, or even still in business?
The average couple spends 528 hours planning a wedding – equal to 66 full workdays.
Now, if this was mostly fun stuff, that would be fine. But it’s not…it’s mostly tedious internet searching trying to figure out which vendors are going to be the right fit.
Of course, in most cases they can’t figure that out until they email the vendors and ask.
So they shoot off a bunch of “You free?” and “How much?” emails, only to find out their top picks are either booked or over budget.
Back to square one.
Not to mention there are literally HUNDREDS of vendors that could be great but that couples will never find.
This could all be fixed, but the big wedding platforms aren’t incentivized to fix it. They make money when they get vendors “exposure”, leads…not bookings.
Imagine if they only made money when vendors got bookings – how much harder would they work to fill vendor's calendars?
Because… isn’t that the goal? Couples want to find and book their perfect vendors. Vendors want to be found and booked by their ideal couples. It’s a win-win.
We’re ready to fix this, starting with Richmond.
We’ve already facilitated nearly 200 new bookings for photographers, totaling about $600,000. And we're just getting started.
We've learned what works, what doesn't, made adjustments, and discovered what both couples and vendors really need:
- Couples want a fun, interactive, visual experience.
- Vendors want a hassle-free, risk-free platform that connects them with their ideal couple.
Here’s how it works:
- Couples go through a fun, interactive, quiz to match with vendors based on 25 different algorithm ranking factors.
- Only when a match leads to a booking do vendors pay a referral fee. This model guarantees that vendors only invest in outcomes. No bookings = no fees.
We’re totally transparent with our fees, they look like this:
Photographers pay a $150 fee for any booking they get over $1500
Planners and Videographers pay a $100 fee for any booking they get over $1000
DJs and Florists pay a $75 fee for any booking they get over $750
H&MU Artists and Bakers pay a $25 fee for any booking over $250
For bookings below these minimums, there’s no fee.
It’s a totally different way of doing business, built around transparency, fairness, and genuine partnership.
And we want to have ALL of the best vendors in Richmond, so if you or someone you know wants a totally risk-free way to get more bookings and believes in this mission, we’d love for you to create an account.
