A rush to the altar appears to be picking up steam now that pandemic restrictions are easing.
Virginia Charboneau is a wedding planner and says 2021 is the busiest year she’s ever seen for weddings.
Charboneau owns Timeless Memories, her wedding planning business, and Kingston Wedding and Event Providers, which can supply couple with everything from tables and chairs to tents for outdoor events.
“People have just been booking, like we’ve had people calling and booking: ‘Can you put my wedding together in like 48 hours, 72 hours? I’m getting married next week, I need this or I need that or bits and pieces,” says Charboneau.
Charboneau says the pandemic has created a perfect storm over the last year and a half for couples looking to tie the knot.
“They’re booking into 2022, and 2023 and 2024, they’re playing catch-up for people that couldn’t get married last year or that have put things off,” says Charboneau
The experience is similar for Paul Fortier, the owner of Renaissance Event Venue.
The hall is used for a variety of events including weddings and receptions.
“We’ve got a lot of weddings that have been postponed and postponed well into the end of the current year and into 2022,” says Fortier.
While Fortier is dealing with that backlog, he says new bookings haven’t been coming in at the same pace.
“There’s a reluctance to move inside and have large events, to spend a lot of money to have a wedding event and maybe that’ll pass in a year and we’ll get back to the way things were, but I’m not optimistic that that’s going to be the case,” Fortier told Global Kingston.
Charboneau hesitates to guess what the long term wedding trends will be but says simpler less expensive pop up type wedding events are very popular this year adding couples are becoming more flexible about when their wedding is held.
“They’re not just the traditional Saturday weddings anymore, now we have them for Thursday, we have one on Tuesday we have some on Sunday, so they’re almost every day of the week,” says Charboneau.
Charboneau is also recommending that couple check in with public health and municipal officials to make sure all wedding plans conform with existing COVID-19 gathering rules.