Post-Pandemic Wedding Boom Causes Vendor Shortage

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of celebrations and events that involved large gatherings couldn’t happen due to the risk of spreading the disease. This meant that a lot of weddings were put on hold. Now that the pandemic is winding down, a lot of engaged couples are starting to plan their big days, but this is causing shortages of a lot of wedding-related vendors.

The 2022 Wedding Boom

Because so many people put off getting married so that they could have larger gatherings than pandemic quarantines allowed, 2022 is seeing a wedding boom. It’s estimated that there will be 2.5 million weddings this year, many of which are holdovers from 2020 and 2021.

Wedding Vendor Shortage

While the wedding industry spent the pandemic struggling to stay afloat, now there is more demand for wedding services than vendors can supply. Everything from flowers and photography to catering and venues is booked up, forcing engaged couples to either get creative or postpone until something frees up.

Planning Ahead

Wedding planners now recommend that anyone getting engaged in 2022 think about dates as far away as 2023. 2022 dates have been booked solid by couples who got engaged in 2020 and 2021.

Increased Wedding Costs

The shortage has, in many cases, driven prices up. In some cases, increased prices are due to higher demand while in other cases, it’s due to the long distance vendors have had to travel to serve weddings.

Couples Hiring Wedding Planners

Some engaged couples have turned to hiring wedding planners, hoping that an expert in the industry can help them find vendors. In some cases, this has worked, with wedding planners finding vendors willing to travel a long distance to serve a wedding.

How Couples Are Overcoming Obstacles

Due to the difficulty of finding vendors, many engaged couples are coming up with creative solutions to overcome wedding-planning obstacles.

Hiring a Wedding Planner

Some engaged couples have turned to hiring wedding planners, hoping that an expert in the industry can help them find vendors. In some cases, this has worked, with wedding planners finding vendors willing to travel a long distance to serve a wedding. Wedding planners know the industry and have contacts with certain vendors. More couples are booking wedding planners to handle everything for them, which has often produced better results than booking everything themselves.

Asking Friends and Family to Step in

Some couples have asked friends and family members to step in when they couldn’t find a vendor. For example, asking them to cook for the wedding when a caterer couldn’t be found.

Opting for weekday weddings

Weekend dates are more popular for weddings and therefore book up the quickest. Planning a weekday wedding may enable engaged couples to find both a venue and vendors more easily.

Having their wedding outdoors

Anyone who doesn’t want to wait until 2023 may be able to solve a venue problem by choosing to have their wedding outdoors instead. Renting an event tent can make the wedding comfortable for guests as well as beautifully decorated.

For informational purposes only.