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Level four lockdown came at the tail end of the 2019-20 wedding season in New Zealand.
New Zealand’s wedding industry is in economic turmoil thanks to coronavirus, but there’s a possibility of relief as couples shun destination weddings in favor of getting married locally.
And experts predict a rise in small weddings or even elopements as couples look to save money.
Alert level 4 saw a ban on weddings which hit the tail end of the wedding season, which typically runs from November to April.
In level three, weddings are permitted with restrictions. Only wedding ceremonies are allowed and each service has a 10 person cap. No food can be served, and reception can take place.
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Owner and managing director of Kauri Bay Boomrock wedding venues in Wellington and Auckland, Ollie Ormond, said it needed a $ 250,000 loan to keep afloat until the end of May.
Ormond said: “Venues will go out of business now. There will be some who do it in a month.”
Samantha Collins, part-owner of Queenstown-based wedding venue Winehouse, said she feels like she is in crisis management mode dealing with postponements and cancellations.
For Winehouse the border restrictions are the biggest factor. Collins said 80 per cent of the business was determined by those restrictions and the majority of their overseas guests came from Australia.
“So that Australian border to us is super important. It is make or break.”
Other sectors of the industry have felt the impact as well.
Jenny Nicholls runs For Heaven’s Cake, a cake studio in Devonport, Auckland. During the wedding season she finds 75 per cent of her business is taken up by wedding cakes.
Nicholls said the industry was fortunate lockdown happened at the end of the season, when the bulk of the work was already done.
Kauri Bay Boomrock averages 97 guests at each wedding but Ormond is forecasting a 20 per cent drop in guest numbers, which would make it “almost impossible to operate”.
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Some wedding experts suggest more operations will take place because of Covid-19 restrictions.
Collins has felt the same uncertainty. Like Ormond she’s found it hard, but has hope based on how fast things are moving. “So much has happened in six weeks. If we just hold on another six weeks there might be more clarity.”
Founder and editor of wedding magazine, Together journal, Greta Kenyon is expecting the size of weddings to decrease.
“A trend that I was seeing even before Covid-19, was that weddings were starting to reduce in size. I was seeing a lot more intimate weddings, a lot more destination weddings and a lot more elopements.”
Kenyon thinks wedding costs are the largest reason for the trend but also thinks that more intimate weddings are more emotive. She said intimate weddings can easily be captured in photos or film, which makes good content to be shared on social media.
She expects this trend to continue while wedding caps remain in place – and having a smaller wedding is a huge money saver.
Fortunately, Kauri Bay Boomrock still received bookings during lockdown, with some originally intended to be overseas weddings in Australia and Bali. With travel restrictions in place these couples chose Kauri Bay Boomrock as a local alternative.
“It’s exciting to think there is a positive out of it,” said Ormond.
Kenyon said couples who had their heart set on an overseas wedding will now have to look locally.
Rachel Sloane, founder of jewelery design house, Naveya and Sloane, is positive about the future of the industry, despite slow sales.
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Sloane said: “When disaster strikes, or in a pandemic, it does bring people together a bit. It makes people really think about who their loved ones are and really brings that family unit together.”
Kenyon agreed.
“I imagine it (the wedding industry) will be a bit disrupted this year, and that we will see a higher number next year, and then it will probably settle again.
“I feel really positive about the future even though it is hard at the moment. I think we will come out of it OK. People will always still get married.”
