‘The Real Wedding Talk’ reaches an astounding 30,000 members online

‘The Real Wedding Talk’ (TRWT), Sri Lanka’s most sought-after wedding forum online, is also the largest virtual community on Facebook offering assistance to couples planning their wedding in the island. The group reached the 30,000-member mark this month, within a span of three short years, and its founder and administrator, Yasasi Rajapakse, sees this as a monumental achievement. 

‘The Real Wedding Talk’ (TRWT) Founder Yasasi Rajapakse

“It is a clear vote of confidence from our members that ‘The Real Wedding Talk’ does indeed deliver on its promise of making wedding planning stress free and easy,” she stated.

Great community

It all begins with the community of people TRWT has brought together over the years. This diverse group of individuals, bound together by the common need to search for practical tips on planning a dream wedding, is positive and helpful. 

The open dialogue and discussion encouraged within the group suggest that all members capitalise on the expertise of those long into the wedding planning process and others who have already planned their wedding. 

For instance, one important feature on the platform is the queries posted requesting recommendations on all things wedding-related, be it flowers, fabric or favours. The interactions between members remarkably reveal that while members receive heaps of important tips and information, they also get plenty of moral support from each other. This is, no doubt, a key reason for the popularity of this group. 

Positive interactions

To founder Rajapakse and her team of volunteer administrators, the health of member interactions and the transparency of all posts is upheld through the rules and regulations under which the forum operates. 

Ensuring the quality of all member profiles is a key first step in maintaining the integrity of the group and being a dedicated lot the TRWT team work hard to ensure that every single person accepted into this closed community are genuine in their need for assistance in wedding planning. 

This translates into rigorous background checks and evaluations of all requests to join the group. Once accepted too, administrators keep a tab on member activity and communication within the group, ensuring that the community’s ground rules are respected and that all members actively contribute. 

Such stringent guidelines give members a great deal of confidence that the information provided in the forum is current and reliable. This is why one popular feature in the group is the reviews of industry professionals. These insightful recommendations are posted as answers to requests for the best service provider within a certain budget or through ‘Wedding Stories’ – testimonies posted by newly-married members describing how satisfactory a service provider was on their wedding day. 

While the group does encourage industry professionals to post their services on the platform, it is the recommendations provided by the end users that truly assist members with their final pick. Many members have come to rely on the back-stories and first-hand experiences of members who have used a particular service provider when it comes to making their own selection. Once more, the TRWT team observes such interactions vigilantly ensuring that all information and sources are reliable. 

Priceless services on a free platform

The services provided by this online wedding concierge are, no doubt, priceless. However, ‘The Real Wedding Talk’ is an absolutely free platform. This is so, since Yasasi Rajapakse believes that there is a real need for such a space for all couples preparing for marriage. 

In 2015, when Yasasi was planning her own wedding, she found it next to impossible to get a reliable recommendation about a service provider or helpful tips on planning a wedding in Sri Lanka. She also noticed that many of her friends and family also faced the same problem. 

Since hiring a wedding planner is not a luxury everyone can afford, Yasasi was inspired to help couples find strength in numbers, and in October 2016 ‘The Real Wedding Talk’ was launched. It quickly became evident that there was a real need for such a space when the group notched 5,500 members within a year. 

Yasasi, a UX designer by profession, is extremely pleased with the steady growth of the group and confesses that since weddings are her passion, handling most of the operations behind the scenes on ‘The Real Wedding Talk’ brings her much joy.

Apart from the communal atmosphere created within the group under Yasasi’s careful supervision, members and wedding service providers have come to benefit from a number of other services the group provides. Beauticians, photographers and other such wedding service providers find the online community of TRWT a unique platform on which to showcase their products and services. Small-scale wedding service providers find the platform particularly useful because developing a stronger relationship with potential customers comes about easily here. 

Firstly, businesses can offer unique giveaways, packages and gifts on featured posts approved by group administrators. Confidence is also fostered between service providers and users by encouraging industry professionals to be active participants in discussions on the forum where they can offer their expert advice to members. 

Incidentally, members love having their queries answered by leading names in the industry since it translates into a free online consultation, a unique feature not freely available on most social media platforms in Sri Lanka. 

On trend and ethical

‘The Real Wedding Talk’ is also strong on moving with the times, something very important to many couples tying the knot today. Members are regularly kept aware of new trends and styles prevailing in the wedding industry and the forum regularly features ‘Staff Picks’ – featured staff posts on, for instance, flowers for the season, or the latest songs for a couple’s first dance. These posts intend to encourage discussion amongst members. Further, in an age when many are turning to see the ethical value of zero-waste, TRWT has also seen many brides and grooms turning to the group to buy and sell their used wedding attire, decorations, surplus favours, photo props and other such items that they personally have no use for any more. This is a venture the TRWT is proud to be a part of. 

Many a happy member will tell you that their beautiful wedding day started with ‘The Real Wedding Talk’. This pleases Yasasi immensely. The group’s growing success proves that simple ventures grown from a need to fill a pressing gap that exists in people’s lives do indeed work. 

There is no doubt that ‘The Real Wedding Talk’ is an online presence set to transform the way wedding service users and providers interact and do business in Sri Lanka. 

– Maria Nugara Jayakody