The Knot Expands Success of Inspirational Marketplace as Couples Create More Personalized Weddings

NEW YORK, May 29, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Knot, the leading digital wedding planning website and app, today announced early success of its latest innovation—The Knot All-In-One Planner—and its continued marketplace leadership in bringing inspiration to reality through its product feature, The Knot Wedding Vision. The response to these new products has been very positive; they solve major pain points for couples—helping to define their unique style, provide inspiration to match that style, and then recommending the wedding professionals in their area and budget who can pull off the vision.

Just six months since launching its smart, digital All-In-One Planner in November 2017, The Knot has seen an increase in membership of 20% year over year*, adding to its rich history of helping plan more than 25 million weddings and working with 8 out of 10 couples in the market. Additionally, more than 66% of couples who joined during that same time frame have created a Wedding Vision, and of those that created a Wedding Vision and contacted a vendor, 64% also shared their Wedding Vision. A couple's unique Wedding Vision is the result of The Knot Style Quiz, in which couples browse inspirational photos and choose what they like or dislike. The Knot analyzes the results to create the Wedding Vision that features the couple's defined style, e.g. rustic with a bit of romantic and a touch of retro, color palette suggestions, inspiration and wedding vendor recommendations. The Knot Style Quiz has become one of the fastest growing search terms that couples use while wedding planning.

The Wedding Vision has created an inspirational marketplace where Real Wedding photo inspiration can turn into reality. When a couple finds an image on The Knot that depicts exactly what they want for their own wedding, The Knot takes what is known about the couple including their preferred venue setting, wedding location, wedding budget and guest count to run a predictive analysis based on similarities between past couples, and recommends vendors for the couple's wedding location, using their budget and guest count.

"The Wedding Vision gave me so many new ideas and vendors when I was stumped trying to look around on my own!" says bride Ravien Stewart. "I completely changed my wedding vision and it saved me from a planning nightmare!"

As the true industry leader in wedding planning, The Knot was the first brand more than 15 years ago to launch a Real Weddings photo inspiration product that highlights a couple's wedding day elements—from the dress and reception décor to florals and the cake. Real Weddings inspired millions of couples on The Knot, but the brand saw an opportunity to make these weddings even more valuable and useful for couples.

"We saw a huge opportunity to bring even more value to couples through our Real Weddings features we originally launched more than 15 years ago," says Dhanusha Sivajee, CMO of XO Group, owner of The Knot. "Couples were getting inspiration in these photos for their own weddings, but then weren't necessarily able to find that similar cake or venue in their own area or price point. If a couple in Buffalo was looking at a photo of a rustic barn in Atlanta, it wasn't easy to find something similar in their hometown and within their budget. We set out to change the way couples use Real Weddings and took our over two decades of data to make finding and booking the right vendors that much easier. The Wedding Vision was created to match a couple's inspiration with the dream team of wedding professionals who can bring their exact vision to life in their location and with their budget."

There are approximately 300,000 local wedding professionals in The Knot Marketplace across the United States highlighting offerings from more than 44 categories of wedding planning services. Beyond couples, wedding professionals on The Knot are benefiting from the new Wedding Vision product; it makes communicating with couples and understanding what they're looking for that much easier, potentially leading to faster bookings.

"As a floral designer, in my response to brides' inquiries prior to the Wedding Vision, I would often have to say, 'If you have a Pinterest account please share it with us so that we can capture your vision,'" says Marcia Villiers, President - Creative Director, Beautiful Kreations Floral Designs & Event Decor in Sunrise, Florida. "Not only does The Knot Wedding Vision eliminate that, I am also able to generate a proposal quicker as a result of having that vision board with wedding day must-haves, location, guest count, color palette, defined style and inspiration ready to work with, which results in quicker bookings."

Couples can take The Knot Style Quiz and have their own Wedding Vision created here.

*November 1, 2017 - April 30, 2018

About The Knot
The Knot is the nation's leading wedding resource and marketplace that seamlessly engages, matches and connects couples with the right products, services and local wedding professionals they need to plan and pull off their wedding. The trusted brand reaches a majority of engaged couples in the US through the #1 wedding website TheKnot.com, its mobile apps, The Knot national and local wedding magazines, and The Knot book series. The Knot has inspired approximately 25 million couples to plan a wedding that's uniquely them. The Knot is the flagship brand of XO Group Inc. (NYSE: XOXO), which helps people navigate and enjoy life's biggest moments—from getting married to moving in together and having a baby. Please visit The Knot online at TheKnot.com and follow on social media: Facebook.com/TheKnot and @TheKnot on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future events or our future financial performance. These statements are only predictions and reflect our current beliefs and expectations. Actual events or results may differ materially from those contained in the projections or forward-looking statements. It is routine for internal projections and expectations to change, and therefore it should be clearly understood that the internal projections and beliefs upon which we base our expectations may change. Although these expectations may change, we will not necessarily inform you if they do or update this release. Please refer to documents we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of the risks and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein. Forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

SOURCE The Knot

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