Ghatareef for stress-free event planning

Shahd Alhamdan Special occasions, including your wedding, your graduation, or having a baby are supposed to be the highlights of your life. But many of us end up stressed and angry while preparing for such events. These days in the Kingdom, many people hire an event or wedding planner as a way to save time and energy, but it can cost large sums.  Luckily, in Saudi Arabia a new network website named Ghatareef was launched to help people organise their occasions and events. The website was found by Saudi art director and designer, Sarah Yousef. Yousef said Ghatareef connects people having an event with vendors who can handle various parts of the event, making for stress free planning. “Ghatareef is the first social network for occasions and event planning in Saudi Arabia. I was working on it from last year,” she said. Ghatareef is a Hijazi word that means ululation, a sound you can hear across the Arab world when people are celebrating and spreading happiness. The website is like a storefront for vendors, where they can showcase their products, offer services, advertising, and support. Clients can see pictures and videos of the different services offered by vendors. Currently, the website is free of charge for both clients and vendors, but a subscription for vendors will be introduced in the future. Yousef said, she had the idea for the site before she got married because of all the difficulties she was having in planning her wedding while studying her masters in fine arts in San Francisco.  “I could not plan my wedding in Saudi Arabia from the states, so my parents planned my wedding and sent me pictures. I realized the headache that they had, so I thought why not create a website that makes planning an occasion stress free,” she said. Yousef said, she believes vendors that use the site will have more success in gaining business through the exposure online. “No matter what size their businesses are, they can get more chance of success.” Yousef added that wedding planners are one of the targeted customers, as wedding planners could be part of Ghatareef’s vendors that provide their services online to clients. For the founder, money and creating a team were some of the obstacles on her novel business. “I had to save my money just to make this project see the light. I did not ask anyone to help me financially. I was saving for too long. I was struggling in creating a team. I had to go back to Saudi Arabia from the states for a vacation just to choose the perfect team,” she said.  Yousef is planning to expand the business with a phone application in the future.