Tinder launches ‘plus one’ feature to help users find dates for weddings

Two thirds of people say they are more likely to attend a ceremony if they can bring a guest

A person swipes right on a dating app (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Dating app Tinder has launched a new feature that aims to help single people find a “plus one” for upcoming weddings.

Tinder said it has created the feature in anticipation of “one of the busiest wedding seasons” after countless ceremonies were postponed during the pandemic.

Members of the app can join Tinder’s “Plus One” hub and signal to other users that they are either looking for a wedding date or that they are willing to attend as someone else’s date.

“We know many of our members are looking for a plus one for their next wedding and we’re excited to now give them a way to do exactly that on Tinder,” Kyle Miller, vice president of product innovation at Tinder said.

The launch of Plus One, which is currently only available to users in the US, comes after Tinder saw a 45 per cent increase in people mentioning “plus one” in their bios since the beginning of this year.

In a recent study of 1,200 people in the US, 61.4 per cent of those surveyed said they are more likely to accept a wedding invitation if it includes a plus one option.

Additionally, more than one in ten people (11.5 per cent) said they would use a dating app to find a wedding date.

Tinder has also teamed up with Wedding Wire, a wedding planning website, to help single people cover the costs of being a wedding attendee.

A survey of 1,040 people in the UK estimated that the average wedding guest will spend approximately £197 on transport, gifts and clothing.

Meanwhile, WeddingWire estimates that it costs a guest an average of $460 (£335) to attend a wedding in the US.

As part of the Plus One launch, the first 100 Tinder users to use the feature will receive a grant to cover the costs of travel, accommodation and wedding gifts.

“A top priority for wedding guests is permission to bring a date, and one-quarter would consider bringing someone they’re casually dating or met on a dating app as their plus one,” Jeffra Trumpower, senior director of creative marketing at WeddingWire said.

“By teaming up with Tinder, we hope to make this wedding season the best yet for guests and their dates.”

The UK Weddings Taskforce estimates that more than 264,000 weddings were postponed due to the pandemic in 2020 and that there are currently more than one million people in the “wedding pipeline”.

“If the average wedding includes around 100 guests for these 500,000 weddings, there will be 50 million guests attending weddings up and down the country,” it said.