33-year-old’s wedding startup Cheersy raised $550K—with Kerry Washington as lead investor
Ten years ago, Amy Shack Egan agreed to help a friend plan the wedding. He could not imagine that he would inspire him to start two business, or would be Kerry Washington’s chief investor.
During the first wedding, Egan just got out of the university and was doing three work to survive in New York.
“I was very much disappointed to feel really ambitious, but I’m not sure which way I should go down.”
While helping his friend walk around the wedding logistics, he found a mastery for event planning and an unexpected interest in the wedding industry.
Weddings quickly became Egan’s side hustle and bustle: that year, three more weddings planned as a freelance worker. The following year he planned six weddings. The following year, 25 wedding reservations made, Egan decided to focus on full -time wedding planning.
This is the starting story of Egan’s first job: Modern rebelliousIt was a ‘unusual’ wedding planning company in New York in 2015.
As a former gender research, Major, now 33 -year -old Egan, usually did not dream of entering the hyper traditional wedding industry, but the idea of ”rewriting rules” concerned him.
Egan, “Sometimes the best people to establish a new business and shake an old area, almost reluctant people – this definitely did this.” Says.
In the next decade, Modern Rebel planned more than 500 weddings that Egan called “Love parties” and expanded to a “really talented” team from a woman’s show.
Nevertheless, he knew there were more places to grow in the industry – even if it means taking a step from wedding planning.
Not “typical technical ceo”
More than 80% of couples Plan their weddings on their ownAccording to the 2025 survey by the node.
However, it can be difficult to manage the logistics while enjoying the big days of couples, and many of them want to hire a wedding coordinator, Egan says: “A few weeks later, he can take steps, recognize the activity and then become stage managers.”
In Egan’s experience, it can be difficult to find a good wedding coordinator. Online wedding markets usually have subscription fees and can be difficult to navigate, that many couples resort to mouth coordinators.
Egan, “For many reasons, couples reaching the modern rebel, ‘Hey, who do you trust? To whom do you recommend?’ “I realized that it might be his own business.”
Egan officially started in February 2025 CheerfulIt is a digital platform that connects couples to the wedding coordinators.
While he is a freelance worker, he says that Egan is a kind of company with wishes.
“I came to them,” he says. “I have been in trenches with them. I respect and value the service, and I see how important it is.”
His experience with Modern Rebel helped him understand both sides of the wedding market: “I am not only your typical technology CEO that focuses on. I respect both sides of this equation.”
“When I met Kerry, it was ‘yes’.
Being a technology entrepreneur included a lot of learning for Egan – often the hard way. When Cheersy, who ended in January 2025, started the Preed tour, there was no experience to collect donations before.
“I threw this to some really amazing people in my network.” Says. “I said, I don’t know what I don’t know, and if there’s someone I need to know on your network, please introduce me.”
Through a “someone who knows someone”, Egan found a dinner party at a dinner party and discussing Cheersy with the Social Impact Director of Actor Kerry Washington.
“He said, you have to meet Kerry. He will love it,” Egan remembers.
Shooting Washington says it is “surreal”.
“When I met Kerry, we had a meeting for the first time. He confirmed that he said, “I believe it early, I believe it, I’m going back to it.”
Washington echoed with the mission of Cheersy’s mission of “all couples seen and celebrated”.
Washington, the chief investor of Cheersy’s seed front round, is just one of the company’s high -profile investors. Elizabeth Cutler, the founding partner of Soulcycle; Jennifer Gilbert, the founder of the event planning company. and Christina Tosi, the founder and owner of Milk Bar.
At the end of the seed before the seed, Cheersy financed $ 550,000 from angel investors.
Navigating in a unique challenge
Egan initially planned to start Cheersy’s seed tour in the autumn of 2025, but her husband and her husband John received unexpected news in January: After a year fighting with secondary infertility, Egan became pregnant with twins.
“I think no one, even if they are not an entrepreneur, how do you grow two babies at the same time?” says. He and John share his four -year -old son Arlo.
Since his deadline was in August, Egan decided to start a small small money collection tour in the summer and pushed seed financing to 2026.
“Not every founder should deal with,” he says, “But this is a unique challenge and I’m ready for it.”
In the meantime, working on the growing Cheersy’s customer base, connecting with vendors and preparing for another donation collection tour.
Creating a start “is not a straight line, Egan says Egan, but it uses every bit to create joy in the wedding industry.
“I wondered why the universe made me a wedding planner, or he says. “Now I look at where I am with Cheersy and where we are going with it, and I feel that the universe gives me the front row seat to couples in this beautiful way.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misunderstood Egan’s husband’s name. His name is John.
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