This is it—you’ve found The One! You’re ready to hold the ceremony in which you tell each other, your families and friends, and the world that you are beginning a new life together, and you want the occasion to be perfect.
But to get there, you face months of decision-making—finding a venue, choosing vendors, negotiating calendars, cross-checking every detail—and signing lots of checks.
“Weddings are wonderful, but they’re still a pain to plan,” says Adam Healey, founder and CEO of Novela. “It’s hard to know what things cost and who’s good. The vendors all have different offerings and terms of service. And it’s also expensive.”
Healey started Novela in January 2022 to help couples navigate this process: “We see ourselves as a wedding concierge.” Novela does the up-front market research and pre-vetting in order to connect its clients with venues and suppliers that fit their style—and their pocketbook. The goal, says Healey, is to put the right couple with the right partner for the perfect wedding.
Novela begins with an intake interview to go over what the couple wants, what they need, and what they want to spend. Then Novela develops a customized list of recommendations for wedding planners, venues, caterers, and a host of other services. The plan provides three options for each category—all of them pre-qualified to make sure they fit the budget and have availability for the couple’s date. “And we’re there to help guide you through the entire process,” says Healey.
To do the interview and plan development, Novela charges an up-front fee of $295; that fee is fully refunded once the couple hires any of the recommended vendors. The company’s business model is based on the referral fees paid by vendors, all of whom have been pre-vetted and agree to a best-rate guarantee.
“Charlottesville is our hometown, and we have a lot of relationships here,” Healey notes. He has a background in the industry; in 2011, he founded Borrowed & Blue, a Charlottesville- based wedding marketplace bought by Zola in 2018. Unlike Zola and The Knot, which are essentially vendor listings, Healey describes Novela as “a more curated service—really a new concept for the wedding industry.” Eventually, he hopes to expand the Novela model to other markets.
Why not just hire a planner straight off? “There’s a wide variety of tastes and personalities among planners,” says Healey. “And they offer different levels of service—some just handle event management for the day of, others will plan the event soup to nuts, or they offer everything in between.” For the full-service option, fees can vary from $10,000 to $15,000, he notes.