Ciara ready to slay Dragons with wedding venue idea

A YOUNG internet entrepreneur who helps couples tie the knot in their dream venue is about to enter the Dragons’ Den.

Ciara Crossan, 27, from Kerrypike in Cork, will make her pitch for the dragons’ investment in her business, weddingdates.ie, on the RTÉ 1 show tomorrow night.

With a family steeped in the hotel industry – her parents were both involved in the running of hotels in Sligo and the midlands – Ciara founded weddingdates.ie almost two years ago.

The site allows couples to select a date and a county, and with the click of a button find all the available wedding venues for that date.

Her site, which has 120 listings, gives users a full description of the venue, including prices per person, and allows couples to make a direct enquiry with the venue of their choice.

Ciara declined to discuss the outcome of her stint in the Dragons’ Den before broadcast. But she said it was an invaluable experience.

She has also conducted a survey which shows over a third of all couples are tying the knot within a year of getting engaged.

Previously, couples would spend up to two years planning their wedding.

“I believe the reason for the shorter engagement lengths is due in part to the current climate, whereby people are making sure they have the money in the bank before they commit to a wedding and the expenditure that brings,” she said.

Her survey, which was conducted among 250 couples from across Cork and Kerry in recent months, also shows a 10% rise in the number of civil wedding ceremonies, and a surge in the popularity of winter weddings.

The recession and the shift in wedding behaviour has also presented hotels with a challenging environment, Ciara said.

“They need to market themselves very effectively in order to capture last-minute weddings,” she said.

“We Google everything these days and venues looking to give themselves the best opportunity to capture the lucrative wedding market need to be positioned well on search engines and websites as that is where their potential couples are hanging out,” said Ciara.

The UCC graduate from Kerrypike, Co Cork, works in the business, which is based at the Rubicon Centre in Cork, with her brother Paul, a computer science graduate.

A total of 40% of the site’s traffic comes from abroad.

Ciara, who is young, free and single and “waiting for the right man to come along”, also said there is huge potential to market Ireland abroad as a wedding venue.