Wedding Spot

Founded in August 2013 by former venture capitalist Tina Hoang-To, Wedding Spot emerged as a distinctive two-sided marketplace for the wedding industry, headquartered in San Francisco. The platform was conceptualized to address the inefficiencies couples faced in the venue selection process, specifically the time spent gathering information and waiting for responses. Wedding Spot's development was supported by a total of $3.22 million raised over two seed funding rounds, with the first in December 2013 for $250k and a subsequent $3 million round in September 2014 led by Atlas Venture and KEC Ventures.

The company's core offering is a free online platform for couples to search, price, and compare wedding venues based on filters like budget, location, style, and guest count. A key feature is the ability for users to build a customized wedding package by selecting specific services and options to receive an instant price estimate, bringing significant transparency to the planning process. Following the estimate, couples can book a venue tour with a single click. For its business clients—the wedding venues—the platform provides proprietary technology and tools to manage the entire booking process. This includes lead generation, content organization, and marketing their inventory to a targeted audience, effectively serving as a complete customer acquisition and management solution. Before its acquisition, it appears Wedding Spot was a subsidiary of HoneyBook, a business and financial management platform.

A significant milestone occurred in May 2019 when Cvent, a major meetings, events, and hospitality technology provider, acquired Wedding Spot for $7 million. This acquisition was a strategic move for Cvent to penetrate the $100 billion wedding industry and expand its Cvent Hospitality Cloud offerings. By integrating Wedding Spot's network of over 12,000 venues, Cvent provided its existing hotel and venue clients with a direct channel to attract wedding-related group business, which can constitute up to 20% of their group revenue. Following the acquisition, Wedding Spot's team of 20 employees was set to be based in Cvent's new San Francisco office.

Keywords: wedding venue sourcing, event venue marketplace, wedding planning platform, price comparison venues, online venue booking, wedding budget estimator, venue lead generation, hospitality technology, event management software, Cvent acquisition, Tina Hoang-To, Atlas Venture, KEC Ventures, HoneyBook subsidiary, Spot Estimate, group business for hotels, wedding industry technology, San Francisco startup, venue booking management, digital wedding planning