Meet our Founder - Katherine Xia

Ezer was founded by a fellow bride-to-be who was so frustrated on her own journey of wedding planning that she decided she was going to do something about it.

" I got engaged December 2020. I was so excited to start wedding planning! But one month and about 100 hours of research later, I had only booked two vendors...and I was...burnt out...from wedding planning. "

Did you have any idea that your fiancé, Sunny, was going to propose?

I definitely knew it was coming but I wasn't upset, I was just so excited to finally be getting engaged! Our parents were also the worst at keeping the secret - they would ask Sunny questions directly about it as I was standing right there. We laugh at those memories now, but it definitely frazzled Sunny leading up to the engagement.

How did Sunny propose?

Sunny created a scavenger hunt proposal for me! My sister was my chauffeur for the day and Sunny's right hand woman at planning the whole thing! At each clue location, there was someone who was special to me or us and they'd give me the next clue. I'd blown through all the clues pretty fast, but the very last clue was a sudoku (Sunny's a math geek) and it took me - I'm embarrassed to say this now - 40 minutes to get the final answer. It was, unbeknownst to me at the time, the coordinates to the place where Sunny would propose.

It was actually impeccable timing because by the time we got to the proposal site, which was a gazebo overlooking the NYC skyline, the sun was just starting to set. I didn't know that this was our final location so driving up to the gazebo, which I saw was decorated for a proposal, I actually said to my sister "Look! Someone else is getting engaged today too!!" Turns out, it was just me.

Sunny was waiting for me, in freezing 20 degree weather, in the gazebo. We were both shivering as he read a handwritten letter to me before getting down on one knee and proposing. After Sunny slipped the ring on my finger, we looked up and found a peanut gallery of our friends and family peering into the gazebo, soaking in the moment with us! There was even a Zoom meeting going on for our friends and family who couldn't make it in person - talk about covid engagements!

" I thought that with websites like the Knot and Zola wedding planning would be way easier - but it wasn't."

How did the idea for Ezer come about?

I got engaged December 2020. I was so excited to start wedding planning! But one month and about 100 hours of research later, I had only booked two vendors, my venue and my photographer, and I was exhausted - no, burnt out - from wedding planning. I thought that with websites like the Knot and Zola wedding planning would be way easier - but it wasn't. I would scroll for hours on those sites, opening hundreds of tabs, trying to find the vendors that matched what I was looking for. And when I finally found the vendors that I liked, I'd reach out just to find they were too expensive or unavailable. I was so frustrated!! I knew there had to be a better way.

I wanted to use all photos already saved on my Instagram and Pinterest to find the perfect vendors for me that were in my budget, location, and available on my date. With all the modern technology out there making recommendations when we shop, when we watch Netflix, even when we date, I just couldn't believe the wedding planning experience was what it was. My then fiancé, now husband, Sunny is actually a software engineer in artificial intelligence, and as I painted this picture of what a better wedding planning process would be like instead, we started dreaming about Ezer and how we could use mood boards and AI to make wedding planning easier.

Wow, so your fiancé is your co-founder? Power couple!

He's our head of Machine Learning and AI and has been the best supporter and partner as I start on this venture. We actually have an amazing little team that's helped to build out our product thus far too. We're excited for the upcoming launch and can't wait to get it in the hands of planning couples and wedding vendors!