Hitched.co.uk / Case study

Building a Scalable, High-Performance Wedding Planning Platform

HIGHLIGHTS

Name: Hitched
Industry: Wedding planning and supplier marketplace
Region: United Kingdom
Core Offerings: Wedding planning resources, supplier and venue directories, planning tools, inspiration content, and free wedding websites for couples.

In this article

Requirement

Challenge

Solution

Impact

Modernizing the wedding planning experience with a scalable digital platform

Hitched wanted to modernize its digital platform to handle a growing audience and supplier network. The main goals included:

A scalable, high-performance platform capable of supporting a large content base and increasing user traffic.
A supplier and venue marketplace with detailed profiles, images, reviews, and enquiry forms.
Planning tools and dashboards for couples, including checklists, budgets, and guest lists.
Strong SEO architecture to attract organic traffic for wedding-related searches.
A fully responsive, user-friendly interface for mobile and desktop.
Reliable performance during peak seasons with high visitor loads.
Integration with third-party systems like CRM and email marketing.
A CMS to manage blogs, supplier content, and editorial workflows efficiently.

Overcoming scalability, performance, and user experience hurdles in a growing wedding platform

The project presented several key challenges:

Managing a very large database of supplier and venue listings with complex filtering and search needs.
Designing a fast and scalable search engine capable of handling multiple filter parameters such as price, service type, and location.
Creating a personalized experience for users who plan weddings over several months, requiring persistent user data and cross-device synchronization.
Maintaining and improving SEO rankings during redevelopment, including managing thousands of legacy URLs and structured data.
Ensuring a consistent, responsive experience across mobile, tablet, and desktop devices.
Integrating the platform with external systems for communication, analytics, and supplier management.
Handling traffic spikes during wedding planning seasons without affecting performance.
Simplifying a complex user journey so that couples can move easily between tools, inspiration content, and supplier listings.

Building a scalable, high-performing, and user-centric wedding platform

To deliver on these requirements, the following solutions were implemented:

Designed a modular and scalable architecture that separated content, listings, user tools, and analytics into different services.
Created structured data models for suppliers and venues, allowing for rich metadata such as price ranges, styles, reviews, and availability.
Integrated an optimized search and filtering system, enabling fast and accurate results based on multiple parameters.
Developed user dashboards with personalized planning tools such as checklists, guest lists, budgets, and vendor shortlists, synchronized across devices.
Built a custom CMS for managing editorial content, wedding inspiration articles, and supplier features with approval workflows and scheduling options.
Implemented on-page SEO best practices, structured data (schema markup), canonical tags, clean URLs, and internal linking strategies to strengthen organic visibility.
Focused on performance optimization through caching, image compression, CDN delivery, lazy loading, and code minification.
Applied a mobile-first design approach to ensure usability and visual consistency across all devices.
Integrated external systems such as CRM, email marketing, and analytics for better lead management and marketing automation.
Conducted comprehensive testing, including unit, integration, UI, and load testing, to ensure stability and performance under high traffic conditions.

Delivering measurable growth in traffic, engagement, and platform performance

The new Hitched.co.uk platform achieved measurable improvements across several key areas:

Traffic increased due to enhanced SEO structure and optimized content discoverability.
User engagement improved through simplified navigation, responsive design, and interactive planning tools.
The number of qualified enquiries and vendor leads grew due to a streamlined enquiry process and stronger call-to-actions.
Vendor engagement increased as a result of detailed supplier profiles and better filtering.
Editorial and marketing teams gained efficiency through an improved CMS and automated workflows.
The site handled peak traffic periods smoothly due to caching and optimized infrastructure.
Brand credibility improved with a clean, modern design that enhanced user trust and satisfaction.

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