Meet Ryan Jaleh | Founder & CEO

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ryan Jaleh and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ryan, how does your business help the community?
At Weddily our products bring an unmatched level of innovation and ease into the wedding booking process, but our primary mission is to heal the world through marriage. Today in the US, marriage rates continue to decline while rates of divorce and cohabitation climb. After all, what’s the point of marriage if many end in divorce or you can happily cohabit with your partner without the formality of marriage? The truth about marriage – a truth that is not taught in schools or broadcast in pop culture – is that across virtually any metric social scientists can measure, the married live longer, healthier, more affluent, and more fulfilled lives. Not only does marriage significantly enhance outcomes for those who are married, but the relationship between marriage and positive child outcomes is unequivocal. At Weddily, we believe, based on the volumes of available research on the topic, that the institution of marriage is one of the greatest forces for good in the world, and use our resources and platform to promote and expand this incredibly valuable custom. Here is a tiny sampling of the many benefits of marriage. You can read more on our blog at https://blog.weddily.com/why-marriage-works/. Marriage & Children: Children who grow up with only one of their biological parents are: 2x as likely to drop out of high school, 2.5x times as likely to become teen mothers, 40% more likely to be idle — out of school and out of work, and are more likely to have higher rates of divorce as adults. These patterns persist even after adjusting for differences in race, parents’ education, number of siblings, and residential location. Marriage & Longevity: Having heart disease reduces a man’s life expectancy by just under six years, but being unmarried reduces a man’s life expectancy by almost ten years. Marriage & Wealth/Poverty: The unmarried are 5 times more likely to live in poverty during retirement than the married. Married men earn as much as 40 percent more money than comparable single men, even after controlling for education and job history. Marriage & Happiness: 40 percent of married people say they are “very happy” with life in general compared with roughly 25% of singles or cohabitors. Married men and women are less depressed, less anxious, and less psychologically distressed than single, divorced, or widowed Americans. Marriage & Sex: Single men are 20 times more likely, and single women ten times more likely, not to have had sex even once in the past year than the married. (Almost a quarter of single guys and 30 percent of single women lead sexless lives.), and married men and women are almost twice as likely as divorced and never-married to have a sex life that is extremely satisfying.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
We are most proud of the fact that we’ve been able to create the first and only platform in existence that allows engaged couples to discover and book their wedding online.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Laguna Beach is the quintessential American beach town. First decision we need to make is our preferred mode of transportation: golf cart or trolley? From there, we make our way to Zinc Cafe for some vegan breakfast burritos. After that, we cruise around downtown and buy some trinkets on our way to the beach. Which one? Doesn’t matter they are all the most epic and beautiful beaches found anywhere in the world. Pack your surfboards! When we’re ready for some sunset-laden food and drinks, we will head straight to The Deck – the best an only true beach-front (on the sand) open-air bar in California. After The Deck, we’re ready for more adventure. Hop on the trolley and head over to the Seahorse, the local speakeasy in the back of the Pearl St. General Store. Back on the trolley and now straight into town for a good old fashion beach town bar crawl. Follow the music and head over to Marine Room where the Beibs himself has been known for pop-up performances. Rock and roll around town and finally end up at the local late-night dive, the Dirty Bird (aka Sandpiper).

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
As a company in the wedding industry, I spend a lot of time talking about the benefits of marriage. Not only have I spent countless hours studying marriage and it’s many benefits, I’ve lived them first-hand. What we’ve been able to accomplish at Weddily is nothing short of amazing – we started in our garage as a tiny group of nobodies and built something that has eluded the largest technology companies in our industry for over a quarter-century – and it could have never happened without the direct help of my wife, Rochelle Jaleh. Something interesting happens when you create a life with someone over many years – you each begin to specialize and understand where your relative strengths lie. My wife’s strengths happen to be my greatest weaknesses. Together, we’re able to leverage our respective skill sets and create a force much more powerful than any two individuals.

Website: weddily.com
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