1 session inside Boa
Wendy Elkhoury
Founder, Wedded Wonderland
Wendy Elkhoury is the founder of Wedded Wonderland, a global wedding marketplace connecting couples and wedding suppliers across 54 countries with a digital community of more than 3 million people. She started the business around 2011-2012 while working in a wedding venue, launching first on social media before building listings, events and a concierge service. She has spoken at international conferences since 2016 and has worked with government bodies including Dubai Tourism.
The session
What Wendy teaches
Test the marketplace on social media before you build any tech
Wendy started Wedded Wonderland on Facebook around 2011-2012, simply talking about the suppliers she was meeting and the problems brides had. She treats social as a live survey: throw questions out, see what businesses and couples respond to, and use the answers as your product research. Only after years of that did the tech platform and concierge get built.
From Two-sided marketplaces: start with demand, then supply →Build the demand side first, then go to suppliers with proof
Wedded Wonderland deliberately serviced couples first. Once couples were asking for weddings in Mallorca, proposals in Paris, photo shoots in Lake Como and weddings in Tuscany, Wendy could approach venues and vendors and say she had specific couples looking in their area, backed by search data. Her framing: "if you have the demand, it's far easier to be able to connect with the businesses that can service that demand."
From Two-sided marketplaces: start with demand, then supply →Cover the supply gap with a free concierge so you never lose a lead
Wedded Wonderland's concierge is complimentary for couples, which means even when a listing does not exist for a request, the team can go and find a vetted supplier. That removes the classic cold-start problem where a customer arrives, sees an empty category and leaves. The concierge also does the vetting work the customer cannot do from the other side of the world.
From Two-sided marketplaces: start with demand, then supply →Lead with education when your customer is a first-time buyer
Weddings are a first-time purchase market, so couples do not know if a florist should cost $5,000 or $50,000. Wendy ran masterclasses and workshops for both consumers and businesses from 2013, and published price comparisons across countries because couples were pricing Australian weddings against Instagram content from the Philippines and Indonesia. The same applies to beauty, real estate and baby products.
From Two-sided marketplaces: start with demand, then supply →
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Session notes are free. The recordings, the live advisories and the founders in the room are for members.