An Interview With Dom & Ali

With 28 years of marriage, a multi-award winning wedding gift list business, and the world’s first Wedding Website platform under their belts – Dom and Ali know a thing or two about the wedding industry and getting married!

Dom & Ali’s wedding day in 1995

Here’s a little insight from them both about all things GettingMarried:

How did you end up working in the wedding industry?

Dom: By accident! Ali had a great idea for an online gift list where you could add any item from any retailer to a single list. I was working in digital media at the time and offered to help out.

Ali: That was in 2010, and we’re still working together now. We launched wedding gift list company Prezola in 2011 with 100 amazing brand partners on board including names such as The White Company, OKA and (believe it or not) John Lewis!

Dom: Within five years, Prezola was the UK’s biggest wedding gift list service and we’d gone from our kitchen table to a team of 50+, with offices in Bath and a distribution centre in Wiltshire.

Ali: A competitor made an offer we couldn’t refuse to buy Prezola in 2019 and so we threw a huge party for the team and hung up our gift list boots!

When you decided it was time to move on from Prezola, what made you choose to develop GettingMarried?

Dom: We actually bought GettingMarried from its Founders, Chris and David, back in 2016. We could see their wedding websites had good bones, and we were seeing lots of happy wedding guests buying gifts from Prezola lists that were integrated into those websites.

Ali: We gave the brand a makeover, designed some new website themes and made it super-easy for couples to add their Prezola gift list to their wedding websites.

Dom: Lots of marketing later and GettingMarried was doing really well. When it came to the sale of Prezola we decided we weren’t quite ready to leave the wedding industry just yet, and decided to keep GettingMarried.

Dom & Ali in their Prezola Days!

What makes GM different?

Dom: We saw from Prezola that couples are moving everything online and that included their wedding plans and organisation. GettingMarried was one of the first wedding website platforms in the world and has always been a trailblazer.

Ali: Couples are super-conscious of the way their wedding looks and feels, wanting complete creative control over everything. And when you ask couples what their biggest concern is, it’s that their guests are happy and have a great time.

Dom: We’ve spent the last three years completely redeveloping GettingMarried to be very guest focused. It’s really a guest management and communication tool that makes it easy for you to keep on top of all the information that needs to go to guests and, of, course, all that stuff that you need to know from your guests; from RSVPs and Plus Ones to menu choices, travel plans and accommodation needs.

Ali: And it’s all wrapped up in the most beautiful wedding websites with matching printed and email stationery. Our website builder is incredibly flexible, whether you’re personalising one of our ready-made templates or creating your own from scratch with our limitless colour palette and complete range of Google fonts.

What are your favourite features of GM?

Ali: I love the website theme builder. You can literally create any design you like in just minutes. I’m constantly playing with the Google fonts to tweak one of my designs. I’ve seen some really amazing sites that couples have created themselves and I’m always stunned by how creative people can get.

Dom: We’ve spent a lot of time this year improving the guest list and building the dynamic RSVP system, so, bit of geek, but that’s my favourite bit. We haven’t hosted a wedding for over 25 years, but we threw a big New Years Eve party last year and I adapted a GettingMarried site for the guest list. So I’ve put my own experience to good use!

What’s new/What’s next for GM?

Ali: I’m really looking forward to seeing how the community elements of GM+ develop over the coming year or so. I’ve seen a lot of feedback from couples wanting more community, particularly around things like reselling and recycling their wedding stuff.

Dom: We’re developing a fab new feature this year that I’m very excited about. But it’s top secret for now, so I’ll have to keep it quiet for now.