Similar to any given sector in the middle, the wedding industry has also witnessed losses and has been affected heavily due to the pandemic. The worst thing is that the 50 Billion dollar wedding industry that has once was said to be recession-proof ground to a halt with the outbreak of the pandemic. All the large budget weddings were turned into small intimate gatherings with a handful of people or cancelled outright.

Those lavish wedding venues are replaced with small spaces as the 1000 plus guest lists are made shorter to less than 30 people depending on local restrictions.

The wedding industry drives suppliers from a variety of different industries like food catering, florists, designers, rental property owners, wedding photographers, and many others. The pandemic has made things difficult for them as well.

How Things Changed?

Before the pandemic, a wedding was more like planning for a festival. Be it sitting with the outfit designers, to selecting the venue, or discussing wedding cinematography with the wedding photographer from SvenStudios as well as from other places.

The weddings that happened in the last few months are way different from those organized in pre-pandemic time. Be it a wedding day or any other, everything has to be followed under COVID guidelines. The latest trends have curtailed the involvement of different stakeholders who were considered must for a wedding.

Some common trends that we see nowadays are:

• Home-based Weddings Over Destination Wedding

As there are travel restrictions and you cannot make gatherings in one place, most people choose home-based weddings. People nowadays prefer intimate weddings rather than extravaganza eventsin their hometowns. This eliminates the participation of different types of cuisine makers who used to be an integral part of any wedding events.

• More Focus on Digital

Starting from wedding invitations to interactions with the wedding planner, people prefer to go with digital trends. Many people are skeptical about stepping out of their homes and prefer having video calls for any given purpose. This eliminates the significance of wedding cards that involves printers, creative artists, and many others.

• Open Air Venues

The fear of infection has led people to hold wedding gatherings in open-air venues. This is to ensure that the concept of social distancing is applicable throughout the venue. Now, this has again eliminated the presence of different wedding banquets.

• Single Wedding Photographer Rather than a Team

During pre-COVID times, most of the clients used to hire an entire team of wedding photographers, including videographers, light men, editors, etc. But now,as people have a thin guest list, they prefer hiring one or two professional photographers to cover the entire wedding.

This has created great havoc on the professional career of full-time wedding photographers. Steven Duncan, a normally in-demand wedding photographer from SvenStudios has felt the effects on COVID and has opined how the business volume has decreased because of pandemic.

Light of Home

With such a tough time and months of despair, things are getting better with the availability of vaccines and other preventive measures. Hopefully, the wedding industry will revive once again, and it will continue to rise in stature like before. Share your thoughts if you know anything that has affected the wedding industry badly below in the comment section.