By Evan I. Schwartz
The New York Times

Beware the bridal-industrial complex.

Embarking on what is probably the most acquisitive year of their lives, the newly engaged often find their hearts, minds and checkbooks being tugged in many different directions at once. The 2.5 million couples who get married every year in the United States generate wedding-related spending of about $50 billion, according to research by Modern Bride magazine, which works out to an average of $20,000 each.

So it's no wonder that the cyberspace race to create the ultimate wedding site is now heating up in this, the height of marriage season.

One problem with launching a national bridal commerce site, however, is that much of the business -- the caterers, the florists, the photographers and the like -- is intensely local. It's difficult, for instance, for one all-purpose nuptials site to recommend the best wedding singers for both Valley Stream, N.Y., and Simi Valley, Calif.

And yet, one of the biggest chunks of the wedding business -- the buying of the gifts -- is the picture perfect Web commerce application. Friends, family and other guests spend about $17 billion annually on ceramic napkin holders, silver candlesticks, pasta-making machines and the various other treasures that couples will stash away for many years to come.

The task of buying these items is poised to go digital because the guests have no need to physically see or touch the merchandise. They already know that whatever they pick from an online gift registry has already been deemed wedding worthy by the recipients. And by putting their gift registries on the Web, the engaged couple solves the problem of being limited to registering only at stores that have locations near all their far-flung relatives and college buddies.

As is typical with fast-evolving electronic opportunities, the early contenders to dominate this market don't come from the ranks of the industry's traditional players -- in this case, the bridal magazines and large department store chains. Rather, they come from the world of well-funded Internet start-ups founded by people in their 20s with personal experience in the ways of modern wedding planning. What's surprising, though, is how widely divergent these new-wave business models are.

Perhaps the most popular wedding site, the Knot, takes an approach similar to Amazon.com, bypassing brick-and-mortar stores altogether. Stocked with 4,000 different gift items, theknot.com allows the bride and groom to browse the online catalog, add their choices to their personal registry page, and tactfully alert their guests. Founded by David Liu and Carly Roney, a young New York couple, the service is based on the premise that today's busy young couples do not enjoy the experience of registering for gifts in large department stores. "The off-line world is somewhat broken," Liu said. "We think the Web has changed people's consumer patterns."

To help with the logistics and fulfillment, the Knot recently took a $15 million strategic investment from the television shopping giant QVC Inc., which is owned by Comcast and is now procuring, warehousing, and distributing all of the Knot's gift merchandise from one location in Virginia.

Vehemently disagreeing with that anti-store approach is Tim Grey, co-founder and chief executive of WeddingChannel.com, a three-year-old Los Angeles start-up backed by more than $19 million in venture capital, including financing from the personal computer magnate Michael Dell. Newly engaged couples like going to the store to select their china, flatware, linens and other accouterments of married life, Grey contends. "They want the face-to-face contact with store employees and a place to return merchandise," he said.

That's why WeddingChannel has teamed up with Federated Department Stores. The operator of Macy's, Bloomingdales and five other chains has taken a 20 percent equity stake in the company, and will be automatically adding the in-store registries of the 300,000 brides it signs up each year to the Web site.

Then there's Stephen Cunningham, founder and chief executive of WeddingNetwork.com. Instead of just one giant retail partner, like Federated, his company has signed pacts with dozens of smaller ones, including the bridal specialist Ross-Simons and the linen giant Bed, Bath & Beyond. With more than 60,000 products to choose from, $16 million in venture financing and equity backing from Primedia, the parent of Modern Bride, Cunningham claims that his company is the one to beat.

And now comes a Silicon Valley start-up called WeddingChannel.com, which has combined elements of many of these other business models -- while also tackling the daunting job of integrating online bridal registries with the back-office data bases and order-fulfillment operations of major retailers.

Named after the young newlyweds in the O. Henry short story "The Gift of the Magi," and backed by the venture capital firm Kleiner-Perkins, WeddingChannel.com says it is the first wedding Web site to offer real-time updating between Web gift registries and store-based ones. So when Cousin Buffy shops online and selects a crystal vase from Harcourt General's Neiman Marcus on a Wednesday morning, Uncle Bertrand knows upon arriving at a physical store later that day that he must choose something else.

Besides working with Neiman Marcus, the company has integrated the registries of Crate and Barrel, Dillard's, Williams-Sonoma and the outdoors specialist REI into its service.

Jessica DiLullo, the 26-year-old cofounder and vice-president of Della & James, is getting married in September to her Stanford University sweetheart at a ceremony in California's wine country. The couple have a personal home page on the company's site, complete with a fetching photo, details about the event, and of course a growing list of what they want, including a gift certificate for ballroom dancing lessons ($50), walkie-talkies ($109.95 each), a backpack ($80), and sterling-silver salt and pepper shakers ($90). Ms. DiLullo is thrilled that the service is ready for a trial run in time for her big day. "I wanted to be a beta bride," she said.

In the end, these sites are supposed to simplify the hectic lives of the newly engaged -- a group that can use all the help it can get in that regard. An interactive poll being taken by WeddingBells.com, yet another site that plans to start a bridal registry, asks this question: Are the two of you having sex before getting married? Out of 1,264 votes received, 9 percent selected the response "No, it's more special this way," and 13 percent chose "No, it's against our beliefs." A whopping 77 percent selected "Yes! Why shouldn't we?" But maybe there should have been a fourth choice: "Too stressed. We're planning a wedding, you know."

Evan I. Schwartz is the author of the newly released book "Digital Darwinism" (Broadway Books; www.digitaldarwinism.com).

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