Just read about Google's venture into the wedding space via this Techcrunch article, "You May Kiss the Bride, Thanks to Google Weddings".  In short, a host of to-be-weds use Google documents and various apps for their wedding planning needs because they're FREE!  Google recognized this and put all of these commonly used apps together on a wedding-styled site and voila, Google Weddings.

I'm launching a start-up soon in the wedding space soon (details here) and I am often disappointed with the lack of innovation in the industry as a whole.  Admittedly, this was one of the appeals of having a web start-up in this space. I've joined several wedding and bride focused communities over the past year to track conversations and I am amazed at how behind industry leaders are in technology use.

Aesthetically, the online wedding space is outdated (still very pre-web 2.0, very flat) and there seems to be an old-school versus new school debate emerging among wedding service providers.  A popular blog topic these days among wedding professionals is, "When to Disclose Your Price to the Bride." The old school is against up front price disclosure, citing price shouldn't be the only determining factor for couples making a decision.  How idealistic and a weeee bit delusional.  This way of doing business may have worked pre-internet, but it's generations x, y, and younger marrying today.  We like social media, shiny things, and great looking websites with information about your service and price.  We often equate a company's web presence with level and quality of service.

Crappy website = Clueless business owner and questionable service. 

No Price Listed = Email List bait and a waste of my time.

As for the technology used in the wedding space, most of the new online apps consists of different variations of wedding planning software.  And, wedding content portals such as TheKnot.com still rule supreme, despite their broken wedding vendor services advertising system. Interestingly, the predominant existence of TheKnot.com has created an 'alternative' community of wedding bloggers to fill in the gaping whole of the lack of fresh wedding content and ideas.

Thus, I truly believe the wedding space is primed for technology disruption and more modern methods of doing business online. 

So, to Google I send a big fat thanks!  People pay attention to Google, (even if the TC comments section think Google Weddings is a big joke).  Truth is, weddings, like other female-focused online consumer niches just don't attract much attention from tech, start-ups followers, or VCs.  However, female focused consumer niche start-ups have great potential, often times a very engaged audience and a lagging innovation drive making it perfect for disruption. (Yeah!!!!)

So, while most of start-up bubble world is busy creating apps for themselves (the new start-ups to help start-ups trend), I am focused on creating a needed app for a niche very much in need of an online technology upgrade.  Indeed, Google + Weddings = A very much needed attention to the online wedding space.