The team behind a wedding-planning website that started in northeastern Pennsylvania is about to launch its idea on a national scale.
The planning platform NEPA Bridal, which started in 2006, gives engaged couples a central place to find local vendors, keep track of guest lists, plan seating charts and set up a wedding budget. Within the next few years similar sites opened in regions including the Lehigh Valley, New Hampshire, Michigan and Illinois. Of those sites, NEPA Bridal is the only site that remains active.
The nationwide website, called IamEngaged.com, is expected to launch in February. Co-founder Chavdar Petkov says it will be accessible on mobile devices and be connected to Facebook. “The system works as a whole,” says Petkov, whose company is in Scranton. “They are not disjointed, separate pieces.”
Along with all the features that are part of NEPA Bridal, couples will be able to add Facebook friends to their virtual guest lists, set up reminders to pay vendors and have them sent to their email accounts or cell phones. Brides can even set up filters for their guest lists to assist in planning — for example, “Show me the people at table 10 who are having fish and who are friends of the bride.” Petkov and his team have also partnered with The Wedding Report, which researches the wedding industry. IamEngaged.com will provide The Wedding Report with aggregated data.
Later, IamEngaged.com plans to add features, like the capability to show couples graphs estimating which percentage of the people they invite will be at their weddings.
Source: Chavdar Petkov, IamEngaged.com
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen