Privacy Policy

In this policy, we lay out: what data we collect and why; how your data is handled; and your rights with respect to your data. We never sell your data to third-party data brokers.

This policy applies to the Capital Wedding Collective (CWC) website and all related directory services. It applies to our handling of information about site visitors, engaged couples or individuals planning events ("Couples"), and wedding professionals listing their businesses ("Vendors"). We refer collectively to these categories of individuals as “you” throughout this policy.

Our guiding principle is to collect only what we need to facilitate incredible weddings in the Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area. Here is what that means in practice:

Identity and access

When you sign up for a CWC account, we ask for identifying information.

For Couples: We collect your name, email address, and optionally, your wedding date and general DMV location. This helps personalize your dashboard, allows you to save favorite vendors, and lets us send you platform updates.

For Vendors: We collect your business name, contact info, service areas, and portfolio content. Much of this data is intended to be displayed publicly in our directory so couples can find and hire you.

We will never sell your personal information to third parties.

Billing information

If you sign up for a paid CWC premium vendor listing or couple membership, you will be asked to provide payment information. Credit card information is submitted directly to our secure payment processor and does not hit CWC servers. We store a record of the payment transaction for account history, invoicing, and to calculate applicable DC, MD, or VA sales taxes.

Directory Interactions and Lead Generation

We store the content you upload to your accounts.

Lead Inquiries (Direct Handoff): Our primary goal is to connect Couples with Vendors. When a Couple uses CWC to request a quote or contact a Vendor, we collect the Couple's provided contact information (e.g., name, email address) and message, and we pass it directly to that specific Vendor. Once this information is passed to the Vendor, the Vendor's own privacy practices will apply to how they handle your contact information.

General Geolocation data

We log the IP address used to sign up for an account to mitigate spam, prevent fraud, and ensure the security of our platform. We keep this login data for as long as your account is active.

Privacy-First Website Analytics

We collect minimal, anonymized information about your browsing activity (such as pages visited and browser type) to improve the CWC experience. We use privacy-first, cookieless analytics. This means we do not use invasive third-party tracking cookies (like Meta Pixels) to track your behavior across the internet or target you with external advertisements.

Anti-bot assessments

We use security measures to mitigate brute-force logins and protect our vendors from spam inquiries. These services evaluate non-personal data (e.g., time on site) to determine if a visitor is human.

• To provide products or services: We use trusted third-party subprocessors to run our applications (such as our database and image storage providers). These services only process your data to help us operate CWC.
• To help you troubleshoot: If you email us for support, a CWC team member may access your account data to resolve the bug, but only with your permission.
• To investigate abuse: We may access your account to investigate fraud, fake reviews, or violations of our Terms of Service.
• When required under applicable law: As a U.S. company based in the DMV, we will only hand over data if compelled by a legally binding court order, criminal subpoena, or warrant.

We believe all users deserve privacy rights. You have the right to:

• Know & Access: Know what data we have collected about you and access it.
• Correction: Request corrections to your personal information.
• Erasure: Request that your personal information be deleted from our systems.
• Portability: Request a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used format.

You can exercise most of these rights directly from your CWC Account Settings dashboard. For assistance, contact our support team.

All data is encrypted via SSL/TLS when transmitted from our servers to your browser. Our database backups are also encrypted. We use industry-standard authentication protocols to ensure your account remains secure.

If you choose to cancel and delete your account, your profile and content will instantly disappear from the public directory. As outlined in our Terms of Service, it may take up to 60 days for your personal data to be entirely purged from our encrypted, active database backups and logs.

We may update this policy as needed. If we make significant changes, we will notify users who have opted into our communications.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this privacy policy, your data, or your rights with respect to your information, please get in touch by emailing us at hi@capitalweddingcollective.com.