Southeast Asia’s Leading Wedding Portal Bridestory Expands to the Philippines

Bridestory, Southeast Asia’s leading wedding marketplace that helps couples with their weddings and provides a platform for wedding professionals, is expanding to the Philippines.

Several weeks ago, Bridestory launched a local website for the Philippine market (www.bridestory.com.ph). The company will also launch a mobile app for wedding vendors across the globe later this month.

The Indonesia-based online wedding platform seeks to establish more presence in the country to administer their on-ground operations more efficiently.

Bridestory, which has over 200 curated vendors in the Philippines, currently manages its relationships with Filipino vendors from its Jakarta headquarters.

Bridestory has received investments from Rocket Internet, Sovereign’s Capital, Fenox Venture Capital, East Ventures, Lippo Digital Ventures, Skystar Capital, and BEENOS Plaza in the past year.

“Bridestory is like Pinterest for weddings but more,” said Kevin Mintaraga, Chief Executive Officer of the firm. He adds that Bridestory combines the convenience of having a wedding directory and an inspiration site in one portal.

“When brides or grooms look for inspirations, they commonly use wedding directories and inspiration sites. But with Bridestory, they can get direct information from the vendors behind each inspiration,” he explained.

Couples can search for vendors that are grouped in Bridestory based on the services they offer—including dress and attire, catering, hair and make-up, flowers, and photography—in over 20 categories.

“Couples who plan their wedding with Bridestory will end up with better, more beautiful, more savvy wedding, since we believe that they will make a well-informed decision with Bridestory,” Mintaraga said.

Mintaraga added that the platform is not just for couples but also an avenue for vendors to promote their businesses. “Bridestory is for wedding professionals who seek to seize the opportunities of the growing digital market,” said Mintaraga.

Over 15,000 vendors from 39 countries, including 12,000 hailing from the Southeast Asian region, presently sell with Bridestory. Approximately 150,000 business inquiries are received by registered vendors monthly.

According to Similarweb, Bridestory has become the most visited wedding website in Southeast Asia by August 2015. Its site traffic reaches 500,000 visits per month. In addition, Bridestory also owns one of the world’s largest wedding Instagram network, reaching out to more than 2 million people globally.