Fêtefully

Fêtefully operates a digital wedding planning platform that connects couples with professional wedding planners who work with them virtually. Couples browse a directory of planners, schedule virtual consultations, and receive support across wedding style and design, budget building and financial planning, vendor selection and event coordination. The company positions the service as an on-demand, one-on-one alternative to engaging a traditional full-time planner.

Alongside the human planning community, Fêtefully provides software that manages planning tasks and responsibilities, coordinates meetings and appointments, tracks guest information, and consolidates vendor communication, payments and decisions in real time. A complimentary concierge assists couples with vendor research, travel arrangements, event rentals, and shopping, sourcing, ordering and tracking purchases. The website also markets personalized, shoppable design boards and vendor support. Founder GiGi McDowell has stated a goal of saving couples up to 80 percent on planning costs while giving planners and small wedding businesses a way to earn revenue in their off time.

Founding story

Founder GiGi McDowell was drawn to weddings from early childhood — she ordered a bridal magazine with her mother's credit card at age five and helped plan a wedding at age 13 — and went on to spend more than 17 years in the events industry, running her own wedding and events company and working alongside planners including Angela Proffitt, Brigette Romanek and Estee Stanley. While operating that business she encountered a bride who could not afford the cost of her desired wedding, while planners themselves lacked the income to work on their companies full time. McDowell launched Fêtefully to make professional planning accessible at lower cost; Built In reports the service launched in 2018. Unable to finance development, she taught herself to build the platform, used grassroots tactics to acquire early users, and put an MVP in front of customers who paid for the service before she pursued institutional capital.

Business model

Fêtefully operates as a marketplace intermediating between couples and professional wedding planners, supplemented by planning software and a concierge service. Coverage describes memberships offered on the site covering services such as advice, guidance and day-of coordination, and describes planners as using the platform to generate revenue in their off time.

Memberships sold to couples on the Fêtefully site, covering services including advice, guidance and day-of coordination; the platform also facilitates and consolidates vendor payments.

Traction

The company reported seven employees in mid-2022 and a growing waitlist in 2021. An advisory board member stated that the company was generating millions in revenue, managed on a spreadsheet, before it received a term sheet. Planned uses of the 2022 funding included completing the software build, onboarding planners and entering new markets.

Latest developments

The 2022 seed round was earmarked for e-commerce expansion, finishing the platform build, onboarding additional planners and entering new markets. The company's website, carrying a 2024 copyright, markets the planner directory, virtual consultations and shoppable design boards.