Syed Noornabi is the chief business officer of Cerimonia, a Saudi wedding planning company, who believes social media has played a crucial role in how Saudis are using these types of services now.
“In the past, weddings used to be very similar [in the GCC], following a set pattern,” he says. “But now there is much more variety, and it has become popular for a bride to choose an elaborate theme for the wedding.”
Today, it is not unusual for Saudi women to snap and share pictures of their wedding arrangements with their social media friends and followers through Instagram, Snapchat, etc. This helped set the trend for ‘e-wedding planning’ business.
Describing the impact social media has had on the wedding planning business in the GCC region, Noornabi says, “All over the world brides are using Instagram, and brides in the Kingdom have embraced new media. They are now fully aware of all the wedding arrangements and are able to organise everything themselves.”
Dina Shabib is a Saudi computer engineer whose experience with wedding product vendors left a lot to be desired, and resulted in her exploring the digital wedding business.
In autumn 2016, as she was helping her brother plan his wedding in Bahrain, she realised how many inefficiencies there were to the planning process.
“All the different vendors [claimed they were] wedding planners and experts in everything,” she notes; however, none were able to deliver a satisfactory experience she adds.
So Shabib decided to come up with her own online venture.
By 2017, she had already launched a pilot website for her own company, Farahii, an online business catering to the needs of couples in the GCC who would like to take their wedding day preparations into their own hands. The store offers all the essentials; from bridal clothing and accessories to the guest books and stationary, and including all wedding day accessories and decorations.
“We basically offer everything but the dress, when it comes to bridal products,” Shabib says.
The company also offers wedding-oriented personalised services including styling and customisation for wedding items, personal shopping services for hard-to-find items, wedding planner packages, as well as expert advice for wedding planning.
While its target customers are primarily Khaleeji brides and grooms, Farahii also ships products internationally. The logistics, however, are proving to be amongst their biggest challenges.
“Every month we have to resolve some issue or another with them [logistics] whether it’s why they deliver our box damaged, why they forgot to collect COD [cash-on-delivery], or why they are sending us the wrong invoices.”
Logistics aside, she also found difficulties with market research, analysis, and funding. With some family support, Shabib self-funded the start-up with around $54,450 of her own money. The founder and CEO continued to bootstrap until the start-up joined the first cycle of Flat6Labs in Bahrain, in 2018. The accelerator injected $30,000 of seed funding into the company.
“[It] was a great experience, but also very helpful with the cash investment,” she says, advising others to not be afraid of applying to an accelerator.
Looking ahead, her team of five is planning to add more features to the current website, recently launching a vendor partnership programme to work with vendors in the region. They will also be launching a supplier partnership programme to expand the variety of items they offer.
As social media penetrates even deeper into society, it’s becoming even harder to expect where this multi-billion riyal wedding planning industry is heading. One thing is for sure, at a 20 percent year on year growth rate, it shows no signs of regression, and many other future Middle Eastern entrepreneurs can take advantage of the opportunities the market has to offer.