Online wedding registry Zola is the latest digitally native brand to move into the physical channel.
Zola recently opened a wedding planner pop-up shop in New York City’s Flatiron District. The store will be open January through April, which, according to Zola, is prime season for wedding plans.
The store, designed to look like the interior of a contemporary home, offers a host of services for the soon-to-be-betrothed, including a CBD lounge, a wedding music playlist listening booth and a 3-D printer that creates custom wedding-cake toppers. Visitors to the store can also register for gifts and design their own wedding web sites and invitations. Employees are even ordained to marry couples on the spot, if need be.
Couples can make an appointment for one-on-one planning help with a Zola adviser or attend one of the many scheduled events.
"We are so excited to bring the entire Zola experience under one roof," said Zola co-founder and CEO Shan-Lyn Ma, in a press release. "We translated everything our couples already love about us, including our easy-to-use planning tools, our curated gift selection and our outstanding customer service, into a wedding planning destination unlike anything couples have ever seen."
Zola, which consolidates a variety of these planning tools previously offered by disparate companies into a one-stop shop, has secured $140 million in venture-capital funding, according to Fast Company. Zola’s primary revenue stream comes from selling products through its wedding registry service.
By Brannon Boswell
Executive Editor, Commerce + Communities Today
