Author Spotlight
Winnie Wolf
When COVID-19 hit last March, it brought job loss, a stay-at-home order and a state of confusion for small businesses who felt as though they wouldn’t be able to get back on their feet — well, for everyone except East alum Caroline Creidenberg.
Creidenberg is the founder of Wedfuly, a company that hosts virtual weddings. The business came to life during the pandemic in a spur-of-the-moment decision to convert her company from a virtual wedding planner for in-person weddings — what Creidenberg now calls Wedfuly 1.0 — to one that hosts virtual weddings on Zoom.
“Our goal is to disrupt and flip the wedding industry as a whole, making it accessible to all, not just the wealthy,” Creidenberg said. “The average American wedding costs $30,000 — a professional virtual wedding with unlimited guests costs a fraction of that with Wedfuly.”
Wedfuly’s customer base stemmed from those who felt the wedding industry as a whole was not appealing to them, or they felt uncomfortable or unwelcome in the current wedding industry. As a team, Wedfuly had an “aha” moment when they realized virtual weddings weren’t going to just be a crutch for 2020 — they actually had a future in a non-pandemic world.
Wedfuly 1.0 was created in 2017 after Creidenberg graduated from the University of Denver and joined the wedding industry to be a part of a female-dominated field. Creidenberg’s goal was to find alternative solutions to expensive wedding planners for people who wanted a non-traditional wedding. Wedfuly 1.0 was essentially a virtual wedding planner, where couples would work, chat and plan their in-person weddings with their coordinators virtually through the Wedfuly website — but that was the problem.
“We honestly weren’t offering anything that was different enough,” Creidenberg said. “We were still competing with a lot of different vendors and wedding coordinators, and we were only local to Denver. It was all online, but still very competitive, and we just weren’t offering anything earth shattering.”
When the pandemic hit two and a half years later, the all-online basis of Creidenberg’s company became an advantage. Creidenberg pitched the idea of a Zoom wedding to her team, selling it as a happy moment in the midst of misery.
After reaching out to a friend at the New York Times, Creidenberg gained coverage on a Wedfuly press release by the New York Times, Brides Magazine and Vogue. This led Creidenberg and her team to fully transition away from Wedfuly 1.0 and focus on hosting virtual weddings.
“We just ran with virtual weddings, from there,” Creidenberg said. “We got an influx of signups before we’d even done our first wedding because people were signing up out of desperation. It was a slow transition to get off of Wedfuly 1.0, but we already had a lot of technology and knowledge of the industry, which helped the growth of 2.0.”
Each wedding gets two hours of air time and Wedfuly spends an hour preparing with the couple on the big day. With their 100% virtual team, the first 30 minutes are used to work with their on-site contact to set up phones, tripods, audio devices and angles. In the following 30 minutes before the wedding, the waiting room on Zoom is opened up and the couple can choose to play a video, music or entertain their guests with party games.
According to Creidenberg, the rest look just like a regular wedding ceremony. Wedfuly uses different camera angles for the aisle, vows and an overall frame — all of which are rotated between during the ceremony. Couples can have anywhere from 10 to 100 people on-site, depending on whether or not the wedding is hybrid or supplemental to an on-site wedding.
“I’ve had the chance to go to a virtual wedding over Zoom with Wedfuly,” previous Wedfuly intern and former East student Catherine Esrey said. “They’re actually a really fun and innovative way to have a COVID-safe wedding. It’s sad for those who planned their whole life around a big in-person wedding, but [virtual weddings] are definitely the best option right now.”
Because the whole wedding is recorded by Wedfuly, couples can choose to purchase a video package containing the whole ceremony or highlights, or a guest can buy a surprise video for the couple, according to a Wedfuly tech operative and East alum Ryan Gossick.
“I think we’ve been so successful because guests enjoy it so much,” Creidenberg said. “When you hear virtual weddings, you think it will be lame, so right now the bar is really low, which works to our benefit. That’s kind of our secret sauce, we have hundreds of guests at each wedding and they are blown away by the experience.”
Right now, Creidenberg knows that Wedfuly is “Plan B” for many couples — it’s a last-minute backup to their real wedding. But, she’s trying to push people through their social media and promotion to prioritize a virtual wedding as “Plan A,” rather than using it as a backup.
“That’s the best part about all of this,” Creidenberg said. “We’ve been able to see this industry blossom into alternative wedding options. We’re unlocking the ability to celebrate a wedding and have that emotional celebration without wasting all of your money on one day — and I think the stress of that is something we’re going to be able to solve.”
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