Planning her own 2009 Spokane wedding from Ireland, Rachel Sandall hit an online wall. 

Google searches six years ago yielded two or three options for venues, without much for photos, so Sandall leaned on personal knowledge from growing up in Spokane to book the Davenport Hotel. 

Inspired by her own struggle, Sandall founded AppleBrides.com, which today as a Spokane-based blog website has more than 90 advertisers and 100,000 followers as an online resource for a myriad of Inland Northwest wedding options.  

“Weddings are a huge industry here and in Coeur d’Alene, so I knew it was a place where this model would work well, and I knew it was needed,” says Sandall, 31. “I couldn’t be the only bride struggling to find a venue, a florist, a photographer.”

So Sandall started AppleBrides.com by June 2010, and in the next year, she settled with her husband Mark in Spokane after living in Dublin, where she had worked three years as editor for the wedding media company WeddingsOnline.ie. 

About a year into building her own site, its popularity grew, and she hired a full-time sales and marketing employee in 2012.

“I started blogging probably six or seven months before I could get advertisers,” Sandall says. “I knew I had to get a strong readership. It wasn’t a huge income at first, but enough to say there is an interest. I was trying to simplify the wedding planning process for brides in the Inland Northwest.”

Sandall attributes the success of AppleBrides to keeping content fresh and capturing a hyper-local focus on marriage ceremony resources in Eastern Washington, North Idaho, and Central Washington. 

The business has made a profit every year, deriving the bulk of its revenues from advertisers, though Sandall also brings in some income as a consultant for other bloggers. AppleBrides now employs three people, providing full-time work for her and a marketing manager, and also including a part-time writer. 

Throughout AppleBrides.com, articles and pictures depict settings and amenities offered by different businesses that cater to wedding ceremonies and receptions. Venues range from Beacon Hill Events & Catering that overlooks downtown Spokane to the Coeur d’Alene Resort. 

Sandall and the other writer create article posts five days a week, including features on area weddings, vendor reviews, event-planning tips, a directory, and industry news. Many posts have gone viral on other websites. Area photographers and brides also submit photos and descriptions from recent ceremonies.

“I think the reason readers keep coming back is our focus is on this area,” Sandall says. “We’re the only ones online who are covering this region in such a comprehensive way. You find the venues, photographers, dresses, hair styling, makeup, even bachelorette parties. It’s like a wedding magazine. Planning can be overwhelming for many brides, and we kind of break it down.” 

Article topics include “How to Word Your Wedding Invitations” and “Nine Wedding Planner Secrets.” Every featured wedding also includes a vendors’ list, so readers know each of the businesses and professionals involved. 

AppleBrides’ articles return often to any given venue, she says, because of differing themes and choices of indoor or outdoor backdrops. People also tend to do much research on details, both because of a ceremony’s significance as a life event, and due to its hefty price tag, Sandall contends. 

She estimates the 2014 cost of a Spokane wedding averaged around $25,000 to $27,000.

“You can have so many aspects when you’re planning a wedding, so you want to do as much research as you can because it’s probably one of the most expensive things you’ll do, barring buying a home or a car, and the car is a little iffy. Brides usually do a lot of research. We want to make them feel comfortable in their decisions.”  

The industry as a whole sees less of a June-wedding focus, she adds, with ceremonies held here year-round. Before listing venues or vendors, Sandall says AppleBrides considers customer service and quality.

“We want to make sure we know the couple will be happy,” she says. “We look at the body of their work. We’re always looking for the top of each industry.”

Although AppleBrides.com draws mainly Inland Northwest readers, the website has plenty of far-flung viewers planning ceremonies here, Sandall says. She tracks the website’s audience using computer analytics.

“There’s quite a bit of interest in North Idaho, especially Coeur d’Alene, which is a huge destination wedding location,” Sandall says. “We have a lot of California brides who can’t afford a Napa Valley wedding, so they come to Walla Walla, where they can get almost exactly the same style for about half the cost.”

AppleBrides also includes themed-wedding concepts ranging from barn-rustic settings to lakeside ceremonies. Sandall says she pays attention to trends. A do-it-yourself theme, best known as the DIY category, rose in popularity and then fell flat lately, she says.

“I think people realized how hard it was to do,” she says. “Pinterest makes it look easy, but professionals are professionals for a reason.”

Sandall says AppleBrides as a home-based enterprise also works well on a number of fronts, including low overhead and her ability to work around lifestyle and care of the couple’s two sons, ages 2 and 6 months. 

After graduating from high school at Northwest Christian Schools in Spokane, Sandall earned a bachelor’s degree in public relations from the University of Idaho. In 2006, she moved to Ireland to complete a year-long master’s journalism degree from Dublin City University, and then landed the editor job.     

With Spokane now home, her husband works for video security management company OpenEye in Liberty Lake, and also helps maintain the AppleBrides’ website. Sandall says that AppleBrides is a good example of how a writer can make a living blogging for a specific area.

“Blogging nationally is so saturated,” she says. “I believe this local blogging model is working, and I think there’s opportunity for lots of people.”

For future goals, Sandall says AppleBrides will expand coverage on wedding choices in Tri-Cities, Walla Walla, Yakima, and Chelan, while continuing to grow its Inland Northwest content. 

“I think another accomplishment is we’ve been so embraced by the wedding industry here, just to see we’re one of the main marketing tools a lot of vendors use,” Sandall adds. “That’s success for me because we’re not only meeting the needs of our readers, we’re meeting the needs of our clients.”