Punchbowl’s Parent Company Dives Into Wedding Industry

Source: Boston Business Journal, Hannah Green
Photo: Lovebird is a digital wedding platform from Massachusetts-based Sincere. (Lovebird)

Sincere, the Massachusetts-based parent company behind apps including Punchbowl, Timehop and Memento is getting into the wedding industry.

Its new digital wedding platform, which is called Lovebird and launched on Tuesday, was partly inspired by the experience of Sincere’s founder and CEO Matt Douglas.

Douglas said that when he and his fiancée started looking for digital wedding platforms, they weren’t happy with what they saw on the market.

“The current incumbents, they’re so outdated. They haven’t innovated at all,” Douglas said. “I was surprised. I was shocked.”

Punchbowl is already known for its online invitations and digital cards, but Douglas said it is typically used for kid’s birthdays, baby showers or graduations. He said he saw a customer demand for an elevated, elegant platform for weddings.

“How is it possible in 2024 there is no leading digital platform for the wedding market?” Douglas said the Sincere team asked themselves. “We have the core components. Let’s go build this thing. And we spent the better part of a year and a half, almost two years, building it.”

Lovebird’s features at its launch include wedding websites, digital stationery delivered by text or email, RSVP tracking and notifications, guest list management, meal selection and guest polling, gift registry integration and messaging capabilities. Lovebird’s tiered pricing options at its launch range from $19 to $249, depending on the services that couples are looking for.

Douglas and his fiancée, who got married earlier this month, were among the test couples for Lovebird before its launch. Douglas said Lovebird helped them resolve several situations they encountered during the wedding process, including setting up a last-minute poll for meal options and sending out a day-of parking update.

Douglas sees the future of weddings as digital and believes more couples will choose to ditch paper options in the future.

“It might take another 10 years, but Lovebird is going to be the platform that people turn to as the digital platform for weddings, and I know that we’re off to a great start,” Douglas said.

Sincere employs more than 100 people and is headquartered in Framingham, Douglas said.

https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2024/10/22/lovebird-launches-sincere