Your Wedding Data After the Knot and Zola Deal: What Both Privacy Policies Already Say

Your Zola data can move to The Knot Worldwide when the deal closes, because Zola's privacy policy, like almost every company's, already allows sharing information if the company is sold or merged; and both policies already share information with advertising partners, which hasn't changed with the news. Nothing has been announced about combining accounts. What you can do is decide now what you want each company to hold, using the opt-outs and data requests both already offer. I wrote Altessa's privacy policy, so I have a stake here. The quotes below are from each company's own policy, read in October 2026.

What each policy says today

None of that is new, and none of it is hidden; I wrote about both policies before this deal was announced. What the deal changes is who's on the other end of the business-transfer clause. Before October 14, it was hypothetical. Now there's a named buyer.

What a merger can and can't do with your data

When a company is acquired, its customer data generally goes with it, under the privacy policy you agreed to. The buyer is usually bound by the promises in that policy for data collected under it, and if it wants to use the data in materially different ways, it typically has to tell you and, in some cases, ask. That's the general shape of US privacy practice rather than a specific promise from either company here, and neither has said what it plans. What I'd take from it is simple: what you've typed into Zola is likely to end up held by The Knot Worldwide after closing, under Zola's existing policy, unless you remove it first.

For a wedding, that's a lot of information about other people. Your guest list is two hundred names and home addresses of people who never signed up for anything, plus meal choices, plus notes like which uncle shouldn't sit near which aunt. Your registry is a shopping profile. Your vendor inquiries are a record of what you're spending on. Most couples never think of the guest list as their guests' data, and it's the part I'd be most deliberate about.

Four things to do before the deal closes

1. Opt out on both sites. Use Zola's opt-out page and The Knot's privacy choices form, and turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser, which both say they honor.
2. Request a copy of your data from Zola through its Privacy Center. You get two requests a year; use one now so you know what's there.
3. Export what you need: the guest list, RSVPs, and gift tracker. Step-by-step instructions are here.
4. Decide whether to trim. Once you have the backup, you can remove guest notes you wouldn't want held anywhere, set the website and registry to private after the wedding, or, if you're finished, ask Zola to delete the account.

None of this is urgent in the sense of hours. The deal has no closing date and still needs regulatory clearance. It's urgent in the sense that it's easier to do before anything changes than after.

How to choose where your data lives next

Read the business model first and the privacy policy second, because the policy describes the model. A free platform with a registry and a vendor marketplace has customers on both sides of your data, and its policy will say so. A paid tool with no second customer can say less, because there's less to say. Neither is automatically safe or unsafe; the useful question is who else pays the company, and what they pay for.

Where Altessa fits

Altessa's policy says we don't sell wedding planning data and don't share it with advertisers or vendors. Meta receives signup, lead, and purchase events for ad measurement and nothing from your plan: no guests, no vendors, no budget. Download my data is a button in Settings with no email gate, and deleting your account removes it from the app right away, from our systems within 30 days, and from backups within 90. It's a one-time purchase, 80 or 120 dollars, which is why the policy can be that short. If you're moving a guest list out of Zola this month, it imports from the CSV in a minute.

Questions people ask

Will The Knot get my Zola data?

Likely, after the deal closes. Zola's privacy policy allows sharing data if the company is sold or merged. Nothing has been announced about combining accounts. You can export your data, opt out, or delete your account before closing.

Does Zola sell my data?

Zola's policy offers an opt-out from the sale or sharing of information for interest-based advertising, shares with advertising service providers, and says it occasionally gives its postal mailing list to other companies for marketing.

How do I delete my Zola account?

Through Zola's Privacy Center or by phone, per its privacy policy. Zola's help center also says you can set the website and registry to private, and fully deactivate by emailing support from your account's address. Export your guest list and gift tracker first.

Is my wedding guest list private on Zola and The Knot?

Your guest list isn't public, but it's held under each company's privacy policy, which allows sharing with service providers and in a merger. Both offer opt-outs from advertising-related sharing.

Armin Korsos is a filmmaker who spent nine years shooting weddings before building Altessa (altessa.studio), an all-in-one wedding planning workspace that replaces the spreadsheet.