Among the industries decimated by Covid-19 was weddings. In 2020 in the US, two-thirds of weddings did not take place, and as much as three quarters in Germany and the United Kingdom. The global wedding industry lost over $150 billion, with a $46 billion loss in the US, €10.36 billion in Germany, and $9.6 billion in UK, according to Bridebook. The pre-pandemic wedding market generated £14.7 billion annually in the UK alone and some 400,000 jobs. Yet the fallout presented an opportunity for British wedding entrepreneur Hamish Shephard, earlier co-founder of HelloFresh USA, America’s leading meal kit provider.
The royal romance of weddings
It is fitting that a British entrepreneur should find a way to monetize and globalize disparate parts of the wedding process through Bridebook, a leading wedding planning app for over 500,000 weddings a year in over 185 countries. After all, the royal nuptials of Charles and Diana; William and Kate; and Harry and Meghan are the most watched TV events in history, beating the Olympics, World Cup, and the lunar landings. Indeed, the UK has a surfeit of castles, manors, stately homes, and gardens which make cinematic staging grounds for the special day. Shephard has a talent for turning old buildings into wedding destinations, including Hedsor House & Park with its millennial history featuring noble visitors, service as secret communications center for the US Air Force, and setting for the film The Golden Compass.
Shephard observes weddings as an important life ritual in most cultures and that one happens every second. More than 90% of the world’s population will marry in their lifetime. He notes that social media has raised couples’ aspiration for weddings. Twenty years ago, there were a handful of wedding magazines. Today, Pinterest and Instagram host more than 5 billion wedding photos.
The bridal business model
Most small and medium business depend on repeat customers, but there is little repeat business for the same couple. Even if one marries again, it’s unlikely to be at the same venue. Wedding suppliers must find new customers relentlessly. Moreover, most newly-engaged couples have never planned a wedding before and don’t know where to start.
Shephard launched Bridebook to solve these problems by bringing wedding venues and suppliers to couples. The web platform and mobile app guides couples through every aspect of the wedding planning process and suggests suppliers along the way. Suppliers can uniquely target couples based on their wedding date, budget, guest count and location. That platform runs on a freemium model with a monthly subscription for preferred access to couples.
Leveraging the platform for political action
The wedding industry is highly fragmented, with many small and independent business owners. As de facto database of most UK wedding suppliers, Bridebook was uniquely positioned as the tool to reboot the industry. Using knowledge and matching skills from Bridebook , Shephard’s first move was to launch online communities in Facebook and Slack to connect vendors for support and solidarity through the pandemic . Two thousand US wedding venue owners joined one support group in a night; 11,000 UK couples joined in 24 hours.
Shephard also launched the Association of British Wedding Businesses to give the wedding industry a voice to the government on key issues like insurance, refunds, tax breaks, capacity restrictions, and more. Pressure from these groups caused the government to appoint a cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt to add weddings to the Paymaster General pandemic support portfolio. In May 2021, All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) was established for weddings with a parallel trade association, the UK Wedding Task Force, serving as the Secretariat. The general, the roadmap for post-pandemic reopening focused on the needs of other industries and was ill-equipped for the needs of weddings. More largely, wedding suppliers, not having been categorized within the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code, had difficulty applying for government grants. Wedding industry advocates assert through track and trace data that weddings have no more health risk than funerals, performances, or shopping.
In economics speak, it appears that software platforms have reduced transaction costs, allowing diffuse actors collective action.
Safe Weddings in the Covid-19 Era
Shephard observes the threes pills of a safe wedding as VTV: Vaccination, Testing, Ventilation. The more people at a wedding who are vaccinated, the safer it is. Many couples request guests to be vaccinated. Couples and venues now typically ask staff and guests to perform at-home tests before attending a wedding. Keeping venues well ventilated is also important and dovetails with many couples’ preference for outdoor summer weddings.
Following more than a year of lockdown, the wedding business has roared back to life. To reduce the backlog, Hedsor House hosts two weddings a day, seven days a week. Bridebook’s mission is to plan 10 million weddings in the next 5 years, some 1 billion guests. While Bridebook has not officially launched in USA, already 10,000 US weddings are being planned on the platform. There is a crowded field of American competitors including TheKnot, Minted, and eWedding, but Shephard believes that Bridebook’s advantage is an exceptional ability to match couples and vendors.
