Tinder announced on Thursday that it’s rolling out a new way for its users to find a plus one for the upcoming end-of-year wedding season. Starting today, users will be able to join the “Plus One” option within the app to signal that they are either looking for a date to a wedding or are willing to be one. The new feature is accessible within Tinder’s Explore section, which launched last month and offers ways to discover matches by interests and more.
“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,” said Kyle Miller, the vice-president of product innovation at Tinder, in a blog post.
Tinder is also partnering with WeddingWire, a wedding planning resource company, to help single guests cover the costs of wedding season through a new Wedding Grant giveaway.
Starting today, the first 100 eligible Tinder users to join Plus One will receive $460 to help cover the costs associated with upcoming weddings, such as travel, gifts and accommodations. WeddingWire found that guests spend an average of $460 to attend a wedding, which is why this amount was chosen for the giveaway.
Image Credits: Tinder
Tinder says users are already gearing up for wedding season, as mentions of a “plus one” in Tinder bios have increased 45% since the beginning of the year. With this latest feature, Tinder users will be able to directly search for a date to a wedding instead of having to weed through uninterested candidates.
This latest launch comes as Tinder has been rolling out new features to engage with users and give them more options to find and interact with dates. For instance, the aforementioned new Explore section features events, as well as new ways to discover matches by interests. It also allows users to dive into quick conversations with others before a match is made.
Tinder also recently partnered with Lyft last week to allow users to pay for their date’s ride. The feature doesn’t require users to exchange addresses or locations and instead lets you send a credit to your date that lets them book a ride.
In addition to these social features, Tinder has also been focused on releasing safety tools for its users. For example, the company announced in August that it plans to make voluntary ID verification available globally. In June, Tinder released a feature that lets users upload their phone contacts and block certain people that they’d rather not see on the app.