Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

WedConnect SA ("we", "us", "our") operates the wedding-services marketplace at wedconnectsa.com, connecting couples planning weddings with independent, verified vendors across all nine South African provinces. We are based in Cape Town, South Africa.

For the purposes of POPIA, WedConnect SA is the Responsible Party. Our Information Officer can be reached at privacy@wedconnectsa.com.

2. What "personal information" means

Personal information is any information that can identify you, or that relates to an identifiable person. For our users this can include your name, contact details, ID or business-registration details, wedding date and location, the messages you send vendors, payment information, and information about how you use the site.

Some information is treated as special personal information under POPIA — for example religious or cultural beliefs. Because we help couples plan multicultural and traditional celebrations (such as lobola, umembeso, and nikah), you may choose to share cultural or religious preferences so we can tailor vendor matches. We only process this where you have given consent, and only to provide that service.

3. What we collect

We collect only what we need to run the marketplace:

• Account information — name, email, password (stored only as a secure hash), and role (couple or vendor).
• Wedding details (couples) — wedding date, venue or province, guest estimate, budget, and planning preferences you enter.
• Enquiry & message content — the enquiries and messages you exchange with vendors through the platform.
• Vendor information (vendors) — business name, category, location, listing content, and, where required for payouts, banking and FICA-verification details.
• Payment information — processed by our payment provider; we do not store full card numbers.
• Technical & usage information — IP address, country, device/browser type, and pages visited, used for security, fraud prevention and improving the site.
• Cultural & ceremony preferences — optional, and only with your consent (see section 2).

4. Why we collect it & our lawful basis

We process your personal information for the following purposes, each with a lawful basis under POPIA section 11:

• To create and manage your account — necessary to provide the service you asked for (performance of a contract).
• To connect couples and vendors — when you send an enquiry, we share what the vendor needs to respond (performance of a contract / your request).
• To process payments and payouts — necessary to conclude and perform transactions, and to meet legal obligations (e.g. FICA, tax).
• To keep the platform safe — fraud prevention, security and enforcing our Terms (legitimate interest).
• To improve our service — understanding how the site is used so we can make it better (legitimate interest).
• To send you marketing — only where you have opted in; you can opt out at any time (consent).

We will not use your information for a new, unrelated purpose without telling you and, where the law requires it, obtaining your consent.

5. When we share your information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only in these situations:

• With vendors you contact. When you send an enquiry or message, we share your name, email, wedding date, venue/area and the contents of your message so the vendor can respond. We do not share your budget, your saved wishlists, or your conversations with other vendors.
• With service providers (operators) who help us run the platform, under contract and only as needed — for example our payment provider (PayFast), our email providers (Microsoft 365 and Resend) and our hosting/security provider (Cloudflare).
• Where the law requires it — to comply with a legal obligation, court order, or lawful request, or to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
• To protect people or the platform — where necessary to prevent fraud, abuse or harm.

Each operator is required to keep your information secure and to use it only for the purpose we engaged them for.

6. Cookies & analytics

We take a privacy-first approach. We use a small number of strictly necessary items (such as a secure, HTTP-only session cookie to keep you signed in) and, where you allow it, local storage to remember your planning tools (for example your checklist and wishlist) on your own device.

For analytics we use our own privacy-first, cookieless page-view counter. It records only the page address you visited, a two-letter country code, and the date and time. It does not use cookies, does not store your IP address, and does not track you across other websites or build a profile of you — we use it only to understand which pages are popular and how many visits the site receives. We do not run intrusive third-party advertising trackers. If we introduce any non-essential cookies or third-party analytics in future, we will ask for your consent first.

7. How we keep it safe

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including:

• Encryption of data in transit (HTTPS across the site).
• Passwords stored only as salted, hashed values — never in plain text.
• Access controls so staff and operators only access what they need.
• Payments processed through regulated South African payment providers (such as PayFast and Ozow) — we never store your card or banking details ourselves.
• FICA verification of vendor banking details before payouts.

No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your information and will notify you and the Information Regulator if a breach affects your personal information, as POPIA requires.

8. How long we keep it

We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes above, or for as long as the law requires. For example:

• Account and planning information is kept while your account is active.
• If you close your account, we delete or anonymise your data after a 30-day grace period (so you can change your mind), except where we must keep certain records.
• Payment and tax records are kept for at least 5 years as required by South African tax law (SARS).

9. Sending information outside South Africa

Some of our service providers process data on servers outside South Africa (for example global cloud, email and hosting infrastructure). Where information is transferred across borders, we only do so where the recipient is subject to laws, binding rules or contracts that provide an adequate level of protection comparable to POPIA, as permitted by section 72 of POPIA.

10. Your rights under POPIA

As a data subject you have the right to:

• Access — ask what personal information we hold about you.
• Correction — ask us to fix information that is wrong or incomplete.
• Deletion — ask us to delete information we no longer have a lawful reason to keep.
• Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interest, and opt out of marketing at any time.
• Portability — ask for a copy of your data in a commonly used format.
• Complain — to us, and to the Information Regulator (see section 14).

Some rights have limits — for example, we may need to keep certain records to meet a legal obligation even if you ask us to delete them.

11. How to exercise your rights

The easiest way is from your account: open Account → Privacy & POPIA to download your data, view your consent log, or request deletion. You can also email our Information Officer at privacy@wedconnectsa.com. We will respond within a reasonable time and within any period the law requires. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request.

12. Children

WedConnect SA is intended for users aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date above and, where the change affects your rights, notify you by email or a notice on the site before it takes effect.

14. How to lodge a complaint

If you have a concern, please contact our Information Officer first at privacy@wedconnectsa.com so we can try to resolve it. You also have the right to complain directly to the regulator:

15. Contact

See also our Terms of Use.