Social media is becoming a top inspiration source for consumers, especially brides challenged to plan their weddings. According to research conducted by David’s Bridal and Wakefield Research, 59% of brides say social networking sites, including Facebook, Pinterest and blogs, are the best platforms to find wedding ideas. Paired with mobile devices, these social tools and applications can make event strategizing and execution more seamless and enjoyable.
To keep pace with technological trends, David’s Bridal has expanded the My Event interactive planning tool to mobile users. Designed to act as a “one-stop shop bridal experience,” My Event provides users with a variety of resources to help plan for the “big day.” Features provided can help brides with a variety of tasks, such as adjusting budgets, planning appointments and communicating with wedding party members. The new mobile experience was developed in collaboration with Usablenet, a multichannel technology company.
Modern brides rely heavily on social and mobile tools to make decisions, organize and communicate with friends and family — especially their bridal parties, according to Johanna Runyon, Director of Digital Content at David’s Bridal. Now that the offering is optimized for mobile, brides have instant access to My Event and their David’s Bridal accounts, even while on the go.
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“The explosive growth of mobile usage across all demographics was a compelling reason to implement a mobile-optimized version of My Event,” Runyon said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “We partnered with Usablenet during the planning process to ensure that the mobile experience was consumer-friendly and helped users achieve their goals.”
Embracing The Shift To Social And Mobile
A variety of features are available in My Event, such as social sign-in, which allows brides to create profiles and invite friends, family and bridal party members to join. As a result, everyone is connected and aware of appointments and important dates. Additionally, access to a newsfeed enables participants to publish real-time updates and discussions on events. Other attributes include interactive shopping lists, a budget planning tool, and even a mood board, where brides can upload photos of dresses, decorations and other facets of a wedding that they would like to execute for their own event.
“We developed My Event to meet the needs of today’s brides who are increasingly looking to social media for inspiration and collaboration in order to create a unique and personalized wedding celebration,” Runyon explained. “We believe it will help David’s Bridal stand out and be seen as a trusted source for all things wedding-related. The offering was designed to solve the needs of all brides, not just David’s Bridal customers.”
Moreover, David’s Bridal created My Event because there was “a need for a comprehensive wedding planning tool that integrates social and mobile,” Runyon stated. “We understand the importance of helping brides to navigate through the entire wedding planning process, which can become stressful or overwhelming, even though it is one of life’s happiest times.”
My Event also can be an effective resource for store associates, Runyon noted. Using the tool, consultants can deliver a more personalized and enjoyable shopping experience. For example, bridal consultants can view customers’ favorite styles through their My Event accounts, develop product recommendations based on mood boards, and help create unique shopping lists.
David’s Bridal prioritized features and capabilities for My Event based on consumer research the retailer executed internally. “Shopper feedback helped identify both key challenges and areas that are more fun during the wedding planning processes,” Runyon explained. “Each feature was chosen and designed specifically to help the bride prepare for her big day.”
Execution and testing processes for the mobile-optimized My Event tool “was extensive,” Runyon explained. Once the HTML version was developed and available on a staging server, Usablenet mobile-enabled the various tools.
