The Knot Worldwide Launches $500K Grant Program to Support Small Businesses

Small businesses in the wedding industry can receive mentorship and free advertising from the industry giant.

BY KAYLA WEBSTER, STAFF EDITOR

The wedding industry may be resilient to recession, but that doesn’t mean the small businesses that fuel it couldn’t use a little help growing their company in this challenging economy. To give them a boost, The Knot Worldwide announced plans to provide $500,000 in grants to help scale the small businesses their platform supports.

The Knot plans to choose awardees through an evaluation process that focuses on business need, growth potential, and operational readiness. Ultimately, having a “strong vision” for scaling the business with a clear blueprint on how to make it happen is crucial to the selection process, a spokesperson from The Knot says. The maximum grant a single business can receive is $50,000. The company plans to recognize about 26 businesses.

“It’s a thorough vetting process to really see what are they going to do with the brand; how do they want to grow; and do we want to partner with them,” CEO Raina Moskowitz told Inc.

Wedding vendors told the company that “access to flexible capital” is a “growing barrier” for small businesses in the industry, according to the company’s annual “State of the Vendor” report. Winning applicants of the company’s new WeddingPro Grant Program can choose between receiving grant money, or free advertising on The Knot’s vendor marketplace. They will also receive mentorship from established vendors or employees from The Knot.

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“Given our scale and our brand, we feel a responsibility to play a meaningful role across the industry, and this is something we can uniquely do to support the small business community in weddings,” Moskowitz said.

Moskowitz tells Inc. that small businesses in the wedding industry are impacted by tariffs have hit three key goods for weddings: fabric for wedding gowns, chocolate for cakes, and flowers. You’d think price barriers on key goods like this would send small businesses scrambling, but Moskowitz says she’s always impressed by the creativity and resiliency of this industry. Many wedding gown shops stocked inventory before tariffs hit, and others leaned into the eco-friendly trend of selling vintage dresses, for example. Moskowitz also pointed to a florist in the company’s network that uses fresh fruit and houseplants in lieu of the traditional roses and peonies.

“We’ve done a smaller-scale grant program before, but this year has been uniquely challenging for small business owners with so much uncertainty around tariffs and costs,” Moskowitz said. “We wanted to be bolder.”

How to apply for the grants

The grant is open to small businesses in the wedding industry who have been operational for at least six months and have a demonstrated revenue stream. The Knot didn’t provide the minimum revenue needed to be considered, but the application form allows businesses to choose grant request options from $0 to more than $250,000. To be considered part of the wedding industry, at least 50 percent of business revenue must be from weddings. To apply, applicants need to fill out a short form and submit a video that highlights their business and how they plan to use the grant. Applications are due March 27. Winners will be announced in May. The Knot plans to choose the final number of recipients based on the quality of the applications.

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