How we look after your information

Who we are

Elite Wedding Society is run by Karen Pretorius (sole proprietor). For POPIA purposes we are the responsible party for the information on this platform. Our Information Officer is Karen Pretorius, and you can reach us at info@eliteweddingsociety.co.za about anything on this page.

What we collect, and why

When you send an enquiry to a vendor

We collect your names, email address and, if you give them, your cellphone number, wedding date, venue or area, budget and message. We use them to pass your enquiry to the vendor you chose, to confirm that it was sent, and to check in with you once, three days later, in case you haven't heard back. If you tick “also send my request to up to 2 similar vendors”, we send the same details to up to two other vendors in the same category and province, and we tell you who they are. If you don't tick it, nobody else receives your details.

If you and the vendor message each other on our site, we keep those messages with the enquiry and for as long as the enquiry, and we email the other person when a new message arrives. Only the two of you can read them, through the private links in those emails or your account. We look at a conversation only if one of you asks us to help, or to stop abuse.

If a vendor hasn't answered your enquiry on our site after a day, we remind them once. Three weeks after your enquiry we email you once to ask whether you booked them. Your answer is kept with the enquiry; if you say you booked them, we tell the vendor, and it counts towards their badges. Nobody else sees your answer.

Two weeks after the wedding date you gave, we email you once to ask for a review of the vendors you contacted. If you write one, it's shown on the vendor's profile with the names you choose and the month of your wedding, and the vendor is told. Ask us and we'll remove it.

When you have a wedding website

We keep the details you put on your website: your names, story, photos, celebrations, venues, dates, travel notes and gift links, guest questions and answers, and a livestream link if you add one, plus the email address you sign in with, your seating chart if you make one, and the families you invite with whose side they're from (only you can see those two). Your website is shown to anyone who has its link, so please don't put anything on it that you wouldn't share with your guests. We ask search engines like Google not to list wedding websites. If you add a guest quiz, guests play it on their own phones and we don't keep their answers or scores. If you add a wedding fund, guests pay you through your own payment link: we never see or handle those payments.

When you use the planning journey

We keep what you tick off on your planning checklist, the wedding-day timeline and budget you save, your vendor payments and gift list, and which milestones you've already seen. Only you can see these, and they are deleted together with your wedding website. If you ask for payment reminders, we email you three days before each payment you've entered is due. Milestone cards are made on your own phone or computer: we don't receive or keep them. The deposit checklist and the timeline builder also work without an account, and then nothing you enter is sent to us.

When you RSVP as a guest

We collect your name, which celebrations you will attend, how many people are in your party and, if you add them, your cellphone number, dietary needs and a song request. Only the couple whose website it is can see your RSVP. Dietary needs can sometimes say something about your religion or health, which POPIA treats as special personal information. This field is optional, and by filling it in you agree that we may share it with the couple for catering. Please leave it blank if you'd rather not.

If you tick “I'm engaged or planning a wedding too” on an RSVP form, we keep your name and email address and send you one email with a link to start your own free website. We don't send more unless you sign up and ask for it, and we delete the request after twelve months.

When you list your business

We collect your business name, category, area, province, description and website, and the contact person's name, email address and cellphone number. Once we approve your listing, the business name, area, description, prices, packages and the photos you upload are shown to couples. Your email address is used to send you enquiries. Your cellphone number is only for us. Photos you upload of other people are your responsibility: only use photos you have the right to show, of people who are happy to be shown.

If you join through someone's invite link, we note who invited you and email them once when your listing goes live. If it was another vendor, you show on each other's profiles under “Works well with”; email us and we'll remove that at any time.

Dates you mark as booked are only used to show couples whether you're free on their date. Nobody sees who booked you, and dates are deleted once they've passed. Badges on your profile (Founding vendor, Quick to reply, Profile complete, Loved by couples, Best of EWS) are worked out from your listing, from how quickly you answer enquiries on EWS, from your published reviews, and from how many couples tell us they booked you. If you haven't answered an enquiry on EWS after a day, we email you a reminder once.

When you enter, judge or vote in the awards

For an entry we keep the photo (or, for an album, its spreads), its category, title and story, and your name and email address. Photos of children are entered only with a parent's or guardian's agreement. For Couples' Choice we also keep your names as you want them shown and the photographer you named, and we email that photographer to confirm the photo is theirs. Judges see Photographer Awards entries without the photographer's name. For a vote we keep which entry your account chose in each category; we never publish who voted for what. Entered photos are shown on the awards pages as the awards rules explain. The winners page shows each winning and highly commended photo with the photographer's name, its title and, for Couples' Choice, the couple's names as entered; when an entry is deleted after three years its photo goes too, and only the names and titles stay on the list of winners.

When you ask for a quote check

We keep your name, email address, wedding date, area and guest count, and the quote you upload, in private storage that only the EWS team can open. We read it to write your report, which only you have the link to. The quote file is deleted 30 days after your report and the request after twelve months, or straight away if you delete it from your report page. We keep only the numbers (what it was for, the area, the amount, the guest count and the month), without any names, to keep our price ranges up to date.

When you download the printable planner

We keep your name, email address and, if you give them, your wedding date and area, and email you the download. We only add you to our planning emails if you tick that separate box, and you can unsubscribe at any time. We delete the request after two years.

When you enter a giveaway

We keep your names, email address and, for couples, your wedding date and area, plus how many extra chances you earned. We use them only to run the giveaway and contact you about it. If you tick the box, the prize sponsor may contact you about a paid shoot. Entries and draw records are kept for three years, as the Consumer Protection Act requires, and then deleted. Some giveaways have sponsors. If you tick the separate box for the sponsors' offers, we email you the offers (with the entry confirmation, and once after the draw). A sponsor only receives your name, email, wedding date and area if you ask for their offer, which sends them an enquiry. If you win, we put you in touch with each sponsor so they can give you their prize.

When you spin the prize wheel

We keep a record of each spin, its result and the chances at that moment for three years, as the Consumer Protection Act requires, and then delete it. If you win, we send the prize's sponsor your name, email address and wedding date so they can arrange your prize with you, and nothing else.

When you share a real wedding

For a real wedding we keep the couple's names and email address, the wedding date, venue and area, the photos, the couple's answers to our questions and the story written from them, and the vendors listed with the email addresses you give us. We email the photographer to approve the photos and the couple to tell and approve their story. When the feature is published we email each credited vendor once, so they can confirm, correct or remove their credit; we don't add them to any mailing list. The published feature shows the couple's names, the photos, the story and the vendors' business names, never anyone's email address. If we use an AI service to draft the story, only the answers and the wedding details are sent to it. Photos of children are shared only with a parent's or guardian's agreement.

When you ask to hear about the awards

We collect your email address, and your name and role if you give them, so we can tell you when entries open. If you also ticked the box for planning and industry emails, we add you to that list too; you can unsubscribe at any time.

Information collected automatically

Like most websites, our hosting provider keeps short-lived technical logs (such as your IP address and browser type) to keep the site secure and working. We don't use advertising cookies or tracking pixels. To count how often a vendor's profile is viewed, your browser remembers for the day that you've seen it; we keep only the daily total per vendor, nothing about you. To stop our forms being used to flood someone's inbox, we count for up to two days how often they're used from the same internet connection and email address, kept only in scrambled form that can't be turned back into the address. To see which pages are useful, we count page views per day and where visits came from (for example Google or Instagram), again without cookies and without keeping anything about you; private pages such as accounts, messages and wedding websites are never counted by name. If you install the site on your phone, your phone keeps copies of pages you've opened so they work without signal. Those copies stay on your device. Some photos in our journal are shown straight from Unsplash, a free photo library; as with any website, Unsplash then sees your IP address and browser when it sends the photo.

Planning emails and newsletters

We only send you wedding-planning tips, vendor news or other marketing if you ticked the box asking for them. If you ticked it on a form without being signed in, we first email you to confirm, so nobody can sign you up with your address. Every such email has an unsubscribe link, and you can also email us to stop them at any time. Emails about something you did (an enquiry, an RSVP, your application) are not marketing and are always sent.

The photo hunt on wedding websites

If a couple runs a photo hunt, guests can share photos from the couple's website without signing in. The photo is made smaller on your phone before it's sent, and we keep it with the first name you typed (if any) and the challenge it was for. The couple sees every photo and can hide or delete any of them; other guests see them only if the couple chose that. We also keep a scrambled code for your internet connection for a day, to stop floods of uploads. The photos are deleted with the couple's website, at the latest a year after their last celebration. If a photo of you was shared and you'd like it removed, ask the couple, or email us and we'll remove it.

Voting in Couples' Favourites

When you vote for a vendor in Couples' Favourites, we keep your name, your wedding date if you give it, and your email address. We email you a button to press so your vote counts, which shows the address is yours. Once you've pressed it (or after seven days, if you don't), we delete your address and keep only a scrambled copy that can't be turned back into it, so the same address can't vote twice in the same field. We also keep a scrambled code for the internet connection the vote came from, to spot piles of votes from one place. Your name and email are never shown publicly or to the vendor: vendors only see how many votes they have. Votes are deleted a year after the results. If you ask for a reminder before voting opens, we email you once on the day and then delete your address. We only send you planning tips if you tick that box.

Nominations work the same way: we keep your name, your wedding date if you give it, and your email address until you press the button in our email, then only a scrambled copy of the address. We also keep the business you nominated and what you wrote about them. The vendor sees how many nominations they have and, only if you ticked the box, what you wrote, never your name. If you nominate a business that isn't on Elite Wedding Society yet, we may invite it, and tell it that couples nominated it (again, without your name).

Wedding businesses we contact

We invite wedding businesses to Elite Wedding Society by email. We only use an email address the business publishes on its own website, and we keep the business's name, category, town, website, that address and the page we found it on. Each business gets one email from Karen asking whether it would like information about something specific, such as a place in our guide or the awards; the law allows only one such request. If the answer is no, or there is no answer within 30 days, or the email bounces, we delete the address and keep only a scrambled copy that can't be turned back into it, so that address is never emailed again. If the answer is yes, we record the date (and the name, if one was given) and send the details and up to two follow-ups while the business hasn't listed. Every one of those emails has a link to stop them, and a reply asking us to stop works too. A yes that never lists is forgotten a year after the last of those emails. These emails are sent from our own mailbox at Zoho, or by Resend after a yes.

Anonymous questions

When you send a question through Vra Anoniem / Ask anonymously, we don't ask for your name or email address, and the question isn't linked to an account. We keep what you wrote and who you said you are (for example the bride or a vendor). Karen reads every question before anything is posted and takes out names and details that could identify anyone; we may also shorten it. If we post it, it appears on our Facebook page and Instagram without your name, and Karen may share it in our Facebook group; we keep it while the post is up. Questions we don't post are deleted 30 days after we decide. As with all our forms, we count for up to two days how often the form is used from the same internet connection, in scrambled form only. Please leave out anything that identifies you or someone else.

Comments on our Facebook and Instagram posts

When you comment on our Facebook page or Instagram account, we see your comment and your public name there, as any page does. Make, our automation service, thanks simple kind comments for us. Other comments come to our website and are emailed to Karen with a suggested reply, written by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic; Karen decides whether and how to reply. Comments under our anonymous questions are advice for the person who asked: we keep them (your public name and what you wrote) for 90 days so Karen can read them together, and Claude checks each one for anything Karen needs to see straight away, such as abuse, names or spam. You can delete your comment on Facebook or Instagram at any time, and ask us to delete our copy.

Who else sees your information

We never sell personal information. Apart from the vendors and couples described above, we use a small number of service providers to run the platform. Supabase stores the database, Vercel hosts the website, Resend sends our emails, and Zoho runs our own mailbox. If you asked for planning emails, Brevo manages that mailing list. We use Make to post to our social media and to pass comments on our own posts to us, and otherwise to automate some of our own admin, without names, email addresses or phone numbers. Anthropic's Claude suggests replies to those comments and sorts the advice under our anonymous questions. These providers process information only on our instructions.

Some of these providers keep information outside South Africa, mainly in the European Union and the United States. We only use providers that are bound by data-protection laws or agreements that give protection similar to POPIA.

We may also share information if the law requires it, for example under a court order.

How long we keep it

We keep enquiries for two years, so we can help if a booking goes wrong and so vendors can see their history. Wedding websites and their RSVPs stay until the couple deletes them, and at the latest we remove them twelve months after the last celebration date. Vendor details are kept while the business is listed, and for twelve months after it leaves. Our record of which automatic emails were sent is kept for two years, and the awards notify-me list for twelve months. Awards entries, scores and votes are kept for three years, as the awards rules require. A published real wedding stays up until the couple or the photographer asks us to take it down; one that is never submitted or approved is deleted after six months. If one is declined or withdrawn, its photos are deleted straight away and the rest after 30 days. Anonymous questions we don't post are deleted after 30 days, and the comments we keep under the ones we do post after 90 days. After that, information is deleted automatically.

You don't have to wait: you can delete your wedding website, remove your business listing or delete your whole account yourself, from your account page. Deleting a wedding website removes its RSVPs and photos at the same time.

How we protect it

Information is sent over encrypted connections and stored with providers that encrypt it at rest. Access is restricted: vendors only see the enquiries sent to them, couples only see their own guests' RSVPs, and contact details are never shown publicly. If we ever learn of a breach that affects your information, we will tell you and the Information Regulator as POPIA requires.

Your rights

You may ask us what information we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, and withdraw any permission you gave (for example to planning emails). Email info@eliteweddingsociety.co.za and we will reply within 30 days. We may need to confirm who you are first.

If you're unhappy with how we handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You may also complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa): Woodmead North Office Park, 54 Maxwell Drive, Woodmead, Johannesburg 2191, POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za, 010 023 5200.

Children

The platform is meant for adults planning or attending a wedding. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. A guest's RSVP may count children in the party size, but we don't ask for their names.

Changes to this page

If we change how we use personal information, we will update this page and change the date below. For important changes we will also email the people affected. See our Terms for the rules of using the platform.