COVID-19 costs local wedding industry thousands

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

This time of year the number of weddings is typically ramping up, but as a result of COVID-19, the industry has taken a huge hit. The impacts have been felt in Mid-Missouri, as well as many couples have had to postpone their weddings.

Madison Fleck and her fiancé postponed their wedding ceremony by around one year.

"This whole like time of not knowing what's going to happen, like are we going to be able to have the wedding, are we not, that was more stressful than just finally like making the decision to push it back," Fleck said.

She said the cooperation from the venues for her wedding made pushing back the ceremony much easier.

Wedding venues, themselves, are feeling the impact of clients moving their weddings.

Rhiannon Trask owns Pop Wedding Photography in Columbia. Under the city's stay-at-home order her businesses was not considered essential, so she has not been able to do photo shoots for almost a month.

"None of us have ever seen this before in the entire wedding industry so we're all just kind of, you know, trying to do what best we can to help everybody," Trask said.

Pop Wedding Photography has four employees, and some of them have been unable to work without weddings to photograph. The businesses have felt the financial impacts of the virus.

"We're probably in the thousands at this point, you know, maybe even in the tens of thousands," Trask said. "Yes we're probably losing some of that money but we're also shifting that income to a different time of year.

Trask said the majority of people who work in the wedding industry, such as DJs, florists and caterers, are small businesses, sometimes with only one employee.

Pop Wedding Photography has been working to adjust by being as accommodating as possible.

"Really trying to be proactive with our clients and sending them dates that, 'Hey, just in case you're looking at rescheduling here's some of the dates that we're available,'" Trask said.

So far they have been able to reschedule all of their clients.

Trask said they have still been able to do some business outside of shoots. She said with more people being home some past clients have ordered albums or wall decorations.

Trask also said she expects to see a boom in weddings during the fall and next spring.

Blue Diamond Events in Columbia helps brides and grooms plan their wedding, from the music to the venue and more.

Owners Lisa Wampler and Johnathan Verdejo are also feeling the impacts of the virus.

"I think the biggest thing that we're all praying to avoid, and who knows what will really happen, is just like the bottleneck of services having to be pushed off to later dates," Wampler said.

They had to get creative and create packages for people's big day that would allow them to practice social distancing and follow guidelines from health officials.

Blue Diamond Events has also felt the impacts as some clients have had to cancel their events, and has had to issue refunds in some cases.

"The couples that we have moved to new dates are dates that we could've potentially booked with somebody else had this not happened, and we're not charging people booking fees for their new dates because that just feels very wrong," Wampler said.

They have also adjusted to work with clients virtually since they are also a non-essential business.

"We created stay-at-home wedding packages and virtual events packages so that if somebody did have to, they couldn't move their date and they definitely wanted to keep it, they still wanted to get married than we could help them," Wampler said.

Items like flowers and food can be delivered to people's doorsteps so they can still have a ceremony, even if it may not be with a large group of people.

Wampler said the best thing people can do to navigate these difficult times is to get help.

"Find a planner, find a coordinator, you know, book the vendors that you can trust to help walk you through this situation," she said.

Those who have moved their weddings have also come together to provide support for people going through the same thing.

"It's been kind of nice knowing that like other brides and grooms are going through this, other planners are going through this and there's sort of like a community. I mean you can go to any of those like chat rooms online on like wedding wire or Reddit or wherever and everyone's kind of banding together and helping each other navigate this," Fleck said.