Simone goes local with weddings website

HUSBAND and wife “entrepreneur” team Simone and Anthony Ghuran have found an easy and accessible way to cater to the needs of couples planning their wedding via the Internet with the establishment of their new website TrinidadWeddings.com. TrinidadWeddings.com is the first local website of its kind. It provides tips, advice on wedding dos and dont’s, articles and a supplier directory listing of goods and services obtainable. What is unique about the website, is that it is all local; every gift, gown, suit, and rental can be purchased and secured in Trinidad. Provision for purchasing online will be made available in the future.

The decision to feature only local goods stemmed from the fact that Trinidad and Tobago is bursting at the seams with talent, Simone said. “And I don’t think that there’s any other resource like what we have.” The idea to construct a website of this nature came about when the Sants themselves, were planning their own wedding. “We couldn’t find any information online and instead we had to go from place to place to get what we needed. So we decided that, to save couples the trouble of driving around, we would provide everything they needed online,” said Simone. The Ghurans celebrated their second anniversary in June and launched the website a few days later. The website provides 18 categories of services offered by 55 suppliers. These include catering, florists, honeymoon package, transportation, rentals, music, entertainment, lingerie, and financial planning, to name a few. The website, courtesy Agostini Ltd, is also offering couples a chance to win a Miami/Caribbean seven-night cruise for two aboard the Royal Caribbean.

Agostini is also offering a choice of Germany’s finest Henkell Trocken wines and Hershey’s chocolates. Simone, also an artist and marketing specialist, said that although a lot of work has gone into setting up the website, they succeeded “with a little bit of luck and word of mouth.” She told “People”: “Like everything else, there are setbacks. It took us a while to source photographs because we had to get permission from the brides to use them on the site. Then, someone tried to steal our idea of the website, so you need to be careful about who you tell your ideas to.” The Ghurans engaged the assistance of the Matrix Design team and Cyan Studios in pulling off the task. It took a year and a half to complete the site at a cost of almost $8,000.

Anthony, on the other hand, played the role of advisor and gave suggestions from an “engineer’s” point of view. “He was able to show us how best the information should be categorised, the site’s structure, how easy it is to access. We always bounced ideas off of each other.” To date, TrinidadWeddings.com has had 2,100 hits to the site. “We’ve received letters from about four or five brides saying that they like the site and one said she was going to pass around the word to all of her friends. Another said she had liked the design, how the information was laid out and that it was so romantic,” said Simone. Simone has invited local experts in their field to write on topics such as dress, grooming, make-up, among other issues.