Interview: WeddingLovely.com Founder Tracy Osborn Shares Why Slow and Steady Wins the Startup Race

While weddings are often described as beautiful, life-changing events, the process of planning a wedding can drive a couple insane. For those that can afford it, wedding plans are left to a wedding planner. But for the average couple, hiring a wedding planner doesn’t always fit into their budget.

In 2011, Tracy Osborn decided to improve the DIY wedding planning process and create WeddingLovely.com, an online platform that provides paid subscribers with a wedding checklist, personalized advice, wedding inspiration, access to a directory of over 1,800 local vendors, reminders, and a wedding website.

Learn how Osborn started her first venture (WeddingInviteLove) that led to the development of WeddingLovely and why she believes that “slow and steady wins the race.”

How I Got Started:

I started out as a web designer. At the moment I kind of do everything, but before I was a web designer. As a web designer, I loved invitations. I wasn’t getting married or anything like that, but I just loved wedding invitations because they’re examples of really beautiful designs. So I decided I wanted to create what would turn into our first vendor directory — WeddingInviteLove, a wedding invitation and designer directory.

I also taught myself how to program in order to launch a very, very basic directory. I started working with vendors and in January 2011… I’d probably say [startup costs were around] $100. It was very, very low because all I had to do was use a very cheap online server, and everything else I used was free.

WeddingInviteLove started taking off; we received coverage by Swissmiss and a couple other publications. That’s when I decided to start launching more vendor directories and open more categories of vendors. Then I eventually launched WeddingLovely.com and started working with brides and grooms directly.

For a monthly subscription fee (or one-time fee) WeddingLovely delivers a guided online wedding-planning experience, sending timely e-mails with to-do lists, and tailoring advice and suggestions to help streamline decision making. Couples are connected to a network of curated wedding vendors to quickly and easily find services in their budget, location, and style. In addition, couples can share their planning progress with friends and family through an automatically created wedding website.