Fresh on the heels of its $3.5 million Series A round, wedding planning marketplace Loverly announced today it’s expanding its e-commerce efforts with its own private label collection of wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses and other wedding-related products. The “Loverly Collection,” as it’s being called, was developed in part by using the company’s own historical data on popular trends in the wedding industry.
The three-year old company has, until now, been operating a search and discovery platform that connects brides with vendors, retailers and other local service providers online. It’s a bit like a wedding-themed version of Pinterest, as the service allows brides to find inspiration for their upcoming event. But the search engine also lets users filter through wedding ideas by searching for items by category, color or event details, too. And when you find items you like, you can click through and buy them from the associated website.
Until today, however, the company has focused on connecting brides with other retailers and vendors, not selling its own products directly. But during this time, its e-commerce “shop” which points other dresses, rings, and accessories, has grown to over 250,000 products from more than 2,500 brands.
To help its transition into selling its own collection, Loverly combined its understanding of trending keywords, based on engagement with its online platform, search, email and social metrics, and paired those with individual designers’ styles and aesthetic in order to produce a collection that reflected what the Loverly user base has been looking for, in both style and color.
This data-driven collection is debuting on the site today, beginning with bridesmaid and white dresses created by bridal and fashion designer, as well as Anthropologie designer, Eva Franco. Her collection is varied and includes both short and full length dresses, plus jumpsuits in fabrics like lace, Jacquard, and chiffon. The styles of the dresses are plentiful as well, with some strapless, other popover, crop top, midi, fit & flare, and more.
For Loverly’s brides-to-be, the price points will also be attractive. The dresses start at $178 and all are retailing for under $450 – making them as affordable as secondhand items, if not more so.
Later this quarter, the Loverly Collection will expand to include things beyond apparel such as floral arrangements by flower service H.Bloom, vintage wedding decor from Etsy seller Morgann Hill, and other items from stationer Wedding Paper Diva.
The company has been steadily growing over the years in the crowded wedding startups space, and today reports reaching 3.5 million visitors across its site and blogger network, where users view around 40 million images per month. Loverly’s native mobile applications for iOS and Android, meanwhile, have seen over 150,000 downloads.