Rumaiza and Anas Ali introduce Wedy, their app that makes wedding planning easy to do and pay for, in Shark Tank episode 1520. Rumaiza spent seven years in the wedding planning business planning high profile, celebrity weddings in India and southeast Asia. When it came time to plan her own wedding, she realized the processes she was using were archaic and time consuming. She wanted a way to make things easier on brides planning their weddings.
In 2020, she launched The Wedy App. What this does is it curates everything you might need for a wedding, including the destination, flowers, table settings, catering – basically everything. Wedy has relationships with over 360 destinations and with wedding vendors in each of their locations. In the app, you pick your location and a base package which you can customize from there. A wedding counselor will advise you if need be. Once you pick the package, you’re done – Wedy takes care of the rest.
Packages start at $2600 and locations range from beach weddings, mountain top weddings and everything in between. Couples can pay half up front and half just before the wedding or Wedy can bundle the total cost and finance the package for you. The services are curently only available in California, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Florida, Tennessee, Texas, North Carolina, Utah and New York. The company raised $165,000 in 2019 and another $20,000 later the same year. They had a seed funding round cancelled in 2022 for unknown reasons. The company likely wants a Shark to help them expend to more states and potentially internationally.
Company Information
Posts about Wedy on Shark Tank Blog
Wedy Shark Tank Recap
Rumaiza and Anas enter the Shark Tank seeking $300,000 for 5% of their company. Rumaiza asks the Sharks “when have you heard anyone say planning a wedding is so easy and so fun? NEVER!” Booking a wedding can be a real hassle dealing with multiple vendors and contracts. With Wedy, couples can bundle services to book their dream wedding. The best part is, there’s only one contract and one price tag.
Wedy is truly a one stop shop for weddings and they are going to show the Sharks how easy it is. Hannah and John, a real bride and groom, enter the Tank. With them is their maid of honor, Casey. This couple booked their entire wedding using the Wedy app and chose Shark Tank as their venue. They also booked a bartender and a florist who appear onstage with flowers for the bride and champagne for everyone. They invite Mr. Wonderful onstage to perform the ceremony. The world’s first Shark Tank wedding is about to begin!
Kevin reviews the script for the vows and begins. He performs the ceremony and the couple is married. The Sharks applaud as John kisses Hannah and then carries her out of the Tank. Anas tells Kevin he’s just earned $600 as a wedding officiant from Wedy.
Q&A
They started the business in 2020 as a wedding planning marketplace. They are the only centralized booking platform for the wedding business. Traditional wedding directories require vendors to list their business for $500 or more per month. Kevin says there’s another consolidator called The Knot; he wants to know how Wedy differentiates themselves from The Knot. Couples find them through SEO, word of mouth and local referrals.
They are currently a regional company in 7 markets and have over 1200 vendors in their platform. They take 24% of every package sold. Rumaiza explains how the app works. Wedding vendors go on the app and create different package tiers and deliverables. Wedy packages the different vendors into one package. Couples go on the app, enter their budget and Wedy shows them a package they can afford.
The Numbers
Since they started 3 years ago, they have $1.3 million in gross revenue. They launched in 1 market in 2020 and made $73,000. In 2021 they made $91,000 and in 2022 they launched the app and made $510,000. Year to date in 2023 they have $850,000 and project $1.2 million for the year. They make 24% of what they sell. They spend 8% of gross revenue on advertising. Of the $240,000 net revenue for 2023, they’ll make $60,000.
Kevin questions the valuation and says it’s not worth $6 million. Rumaiza says they’ve added over 700 vendors that have brought in 60% of their customers. Robert says there’s definitely something there, but it’ll be challenging; he’s out. Mark says they have a hard road ahead, since they’re only in 7 markets one screw up could hurt them; he’s out. Barbara likes Rumaiza but thinks this is a slow growth, grind it out business; she’s out. Lori thinks the business is solid, but it’s too early; she’s out. Kevin’s impressed by their presentation but he’s already in this space with Honeyfund; he’s out.
Wedy Shark Tank Update
The Shark Tank Blog constantly provides updates and follow-ups about entrepreneurs who have appeared on the Shark Tank TV show. Once an episode has aired, we monitor the progress of the businesses featured, whether they receive funding or not and report on their progress. The Shark Tank Blog will follow-up on Wedy & Rumaiza and Anas Ali as more details become available.
