Cookie Policy

This policy explains what cookies Shared Beginning Inc. ("Shared Beginning") sets and why. The short version: we use essential cookies only. Our analytics (Fathom) is cookieless, so there are no advertising, tracking, or analytics cookies anywhere on the Service — and no cookie-consent banner is required, because every cookie we set is strictly necessary for the site to work.

1. Essential cookies we set

• Session cookie (e.g. *_session) — keeps you signed in and remembers state between pages. Expires when your session ends.
• XSRF-TOKEN — a security token that protects forms against cross-site request forgery. Session-length.
• Remember-me cookie (remember_web_*) — set only if you tick "remember me" at login, so you stay signed in on your device. Long-lived; deleted on logout.
• Cloudflare Turnstile — our bot-protection check on the sign-in and sign-up pages may set short-lived cookies (e.g. cf_clearance) strictly to distinguish humans from bots.
• Appearance preference — your light/dark mode choice is stored in your browser (local storage, not a cookie sent to us).

2. Analytics without cookies

On our marketing pages and in the planning app, we use Fathom Analytics, a privacy-first service that produces aggregate statistics (page views, referrers, countries) without cookies, fingerprinting, or personal identifiers. It cannot follow you across websites and we cannot identify you from it. That is why you will not see a consent pop-up here: under PIPEDA, GDPR, and the ePrivacy rules, consent banners are needed for non-essential cookies and trackers — and we have none.

3. Cookies on couples' wedding sites

Public wedding sites hosted by Shared Beginning (including on custom domains) carry no analytics at all — not even the cookieless kind. Wedding guests are never tracked. These sites use only the essential cookies listed above where needed (for example, RSVP form security), and couples cannot add third-party trackers to their sites.

4. How to control cookies

Your browser lets you block or delete cookies (look under Privacy or Site Settings). Because everything we set is essential, blocking cookies will break signing in and RSVP forms — but nothing we set is used to track you, so there is nothing privacy-invasive to opt out of.

5. Related documents and changes

How we handle personal information generally is covered by the Privacy Policy; your use of the Service is covered by the Terms of Service. If we ever introduce a non-essential cookie, we will update this policy and ask for consent first. This policy is governed by the laws of Alberta, Canada. Questions: privacy@sharedbeginning.com.