wedding-ops-strategy

Wedding Ops — Strategy & Software Foundation

Last updated: 2026-06-28. Source: a strategy session between Aaron and Claude. This doc is the corrected source of truth for the wedding businesses and the ops-software direction. It supersedes the aspirational positioning in apps/adventure-weddings/CLAUDE.md and brand.config.ts where they conflict.

⚠️ Reality check — what’s true vs. what the repo claims

The repo (CLAUDE.md, brand.config.ts, the marketing site copy) describes an aspirational business. The real, current state:

Repo claims	Reality (June 2026)
“Lana is the photographer”	Lana is an amateur photographer. Decision: partner photo/video to established pros; Lana stays officiant + host.
”Aaron — certified climbing guide; rock climbing elopements”	Aaron is not a climber and not licensed to guide. He can hike, backcountry ski, mountain bike. No climbing elopements. Heli/floatplane is the adventure-access plan (no guiding cert needed).
Tiers $4,500 / $9,500 / $14,500	Live officiant pricing: Wedding from $950 (2 hr), Elopement (1 hr, varies), Vow renewal from $500 (1 hr). In-person rehearsal is a +$95 add-on. All officiant-only.
”Photography included; zero competitors with the combo”	Positioning is moving to officiant-orchestrator + experience moat, not photographer-officiant combo.

The people (this drives everything)

Lana — marriage celebrant (“Rev. Rose”), licensed in BC + NZ, originally from New Zealand. Also a nurse → weddings are part-time, so capacity is hard-capped (~20–40 good-weather weekends/yr). Price and efficiency are the levers, not volume.
Aaron — software developer (this is the real leverage), DJ/officiant for festival ceremonies. Can hike / backcountry ski / MTB.
Live officiant site: adventureweddings.love/services — branded “Lana · Rev. Rose, Squamish Marriage Celebrant” (officiant-only).

The strategy (decisions made this session)

Focus bet: grow Lana’s officiant business — efficiently now, upmarket over time. One focus; everything else is a cheap, dated explore.
Model: officiant-orchestrator + experience moat. Photo/video partnered (not in-house). The differentiator is the seamless, white-glove client experience — which is built from software, so competitors can’t copy it without a developer.
Near-term (per Lana, who flagged all-inclusive as too complex): do the efficient officiant work (the 3 existing products) + build the systems and great client experience. Defer all-inclusive — but design toward it; the platform is exactly what de-risks it later.
Brand: lead with geography-free “Adventure Weddings”; demote “Squamish Marriage Celebrant / Rev. Rose” to SEO landing pages + Lana’s officiant sub-identity. Expand beyond Squamish (Whistler, Powell River / Sunshine Coast, NZ).
Pricing: grow value without complexity — à-la-carte add-ons + modest price nudges (Wedding $950 → $1,200+), never vendor orchestration. Ladder: Now = 3 officiant products → Phase 2 = all-inclusive $5–8k → Later = “The Fly-In” flagship $18–24k (heli/floatplane, multi-day, custom makerspace installation; anchors the ladder).
Ecosystem (assets reinforce each other): Adventure Weddings (cash engine) ← Festival Weddings + Orcar (brand, funnel, capability proof) ← Create Makerspace (fabrication) + Aaron’s software (ops moat). Orcar is a grant-funded non-profit public-art piece — respect that boundary (sell ceremony service via Festival Weddings; don’t privatize the orca).

One-pager summary artifact: https://claude.ai/code/artifact/14b725e1-2320-48bc-bf95-1cbe0c73925c

The software’s strategic job (read this before building)

The wedding ops software exists to be the experience + orchestration moat that lets a part-time officiant run premium, high-volume bookings effortlessly and delightfully.

The magic formula: the software does the invisible heavy lifting (booking, scripts, licence handling, comms, logistics) so Lana can be radically present and personal. That felt experience — “they thought of everything, and Lana was completely there for us” — is what justifies premium prices and drives referrals. Point every build at one of:

Make each booking near-zero-effort for Lana (she’s capacity-capped and part-time).
Make the client experience feel white-glove.
Create selectivity / pricing power (handle more leads → choose the best, raise the floor).
Be the foundation all-inclusive sits on later (don’t paint into a corner).

Caution: the CRM is over-built relative to current volume (~44 tables, ~29 edge functions for a handful of weddings). The job now is to point existing capability at the officiant-efficiency + experience use case — not to add more speculative schema.

Existing software assets (per earlier codebase exploration — verify before relying)

apps/adventure-weddings/supabase/ — large schema (~44 tables): clients, client_packages, interactions, payments, contracts, ceremony_drafts, ceremony_responses, tasks, scheduled_emails, automated_emails, wedding_day_runsheets, guest_info, vendors + vendor_bookings/vendor_contracts/vendor_payments (← the partnering/all-inclusive substrate already exists), portal_tokens, lead_inquiries, marketing/funnel tables, weather_logs/weather_alerts, etc. Data layer in src/lib/db.ts.
~29 Supabase edge functions — stripe-webhook, payment-reminder, contract-generate, email-send, inquiry-autoresponder, lead-nurture/lead-scoring, client-portal-auth/magic-link, daily-tasks, whatsapp-webhook, weather-check/weather-monitor, post-wedding-checkin/survey, anniversary-*, gallery-*, process-automations, questionnaire-process, referral-tracker, permit-expiry-check.
Client portal — src/pages/portal/ (20+ couple guide pages).
Festival Weddings booking stack — apps/festival-weddings/: Google Apps Script + Google Sheet + Resend, client-side slot grid, per-festival deposits. A proven, lightweight booking pattern to adapt for the officiant products.
wedding-concierge skill — file-based guest-concierge AI (could become an edge service for destination/group ceremonies).

Near-term build roadmap (officiant-efficiency + experience first)

Frictionless booking for the 3 officiant products (Wedding / Elopement / Vow renewal) — adapt the Festival Weddings booking pattern.
AI custom-script generation from the questionnaire — she already writes custom scripts; AI makes it fast. ✅ Built 2026-07-03 — via Astro API routes on the new adventure-weddings-ops Supabase project (the questionnaire-process edge function was schema-broken and is superseded); see docs/ceremony-flow.md.
Automated marriage-licence handling/tracking (BC deadlines, return/filing) — high-value, error-prone, genuine officiant-ops white space.
Client-portal experience — inquiry → questionnaire → script approval → rehearsal → day-of runsheet → keepsake. Make it feel premium.
Warm automated comms — instant, beautiful inquiry response; reminders; post-ceremony; reviews/referrals (inquiry-autoresponder, scheduled_emails, referral-tracker).
À-la-carte add-ons — in-person rehearsal (+$95), makerspace printed-keepsake script, vow-writing session.

Phase 2 (design for, don’t build yet): vendor-coordination layer (vendor tables already exist) → all-inclusive orchestration. Build this only once the officiant platform is solid and Lana’s ready.

Explore (later, only on real pull)

Officiant-ops SaaS — the licence/legal workflow is genuinely unbuilt (validated: Check Cherry ~$29–39/mo, CeremonySync $299/mo for venues; ~13% CAGR market). Path: build it for Lana first; pre-sell to other Squamish officiants (~10–30) before productizing. Lifestyle-scale, not venture — don’t let it eat the focus bet.

Open item

Legal check: confirm BC rules on serving as a marriage commissioner vs. the ordained / religious-official path before any commercial service-bundling or heavy brand lean.

Auto-loaded memory: project_lana_wedding_reality, project_orcar_ecosystem (in the user’s Claude memory).
Orcar repo: ../../../orcar (one level above the monorepo) — 20-ft illuminated orca art car, Create Makerspace non-profit.
Festival Weddings: apps/festival-weddings/ (booking stack + festival ceremony niche).