What it’s like being a wedding vendor during coronavirus?
Carole and I usually receive 5-7 inquiries a week about our wedding photos and films, but over the last three weeks, we’ve had just two.
Two inquires when we should have had about 15-21 in the same time-frame. Today, I want to share with you what it’s like being a wedding vendor during the corona virus pandemic we are experiencing.
How coronavirus has effected wedding business leads
While we typically book a year or more in advance, it hasn’t hurt our business as much as many others that live paycheck to paycheck.
What we have done a lot of however is rescheduling weddings.
In April, we had two weddings on the books, both have rescheduled for 2021 and both are still having a small ceremony that we are covering.
Taking images or wedding video during these trying times has been, well, very memorable.
We recently filmed Rebekah and Issac’s wedding ceremony, with about 10 people, in the middle of a park field because the other two locations they picked, their venue and Mill Mountain Star in Roanoke, VA, closed.
While the couple had a great ceremony, just being 6 feet or more apart from just about everyone, well, thats foreign, especially to Carole and I as we many times are in venues where people are close together.
The main thing that we’ve been doing is working with couples just like Rebekah & Issac on new dates for the next year, and that does cut into our revenue for the next year.
Other companies, competition and the like is seeing a much worse effect than us, several have lost more than 35% of their revenue for the 2020 year. Check out these stats from the Wedding Videographers Facebook Group.
Wedding Videographers Losses for 2020
And it doesn’t just end with videographers and photographers, all of us are seeing the effects of the business. I recently got some information from The Wedding Report, a national report that break downs weddings per each state and region.
Based on survey results from both businesses and couples getting married here is what the market looks like as of 4/8/2020.
This is based on 709 results from couples and 421 results from wedding vendors. These results were collected from 3/28/2020 to 4/7/2020.
26% of couples are postponing to later in 2020, most of these are coming from April and May, but also seeing August and September weddings postponing to later in 2020.
26.5% are moving to 2021, these are still from April to December
5.5% are cancelling altogether, most these are coming from April to June
42% are holding their current date
As it stands, I think we will likely lose between 27-32% of weddings in 2020 but gain a surge of weddings in 2021 of about 20-25%
Just from the number of weddings alone, a 30% loss in weddings will represent 662,000 weddings with a lost market value of $16.3 billion. The surge in 2021 could represent 500,000 weddings with a gain of $12.6 billion in total sales.
If spending levels remain the same, there will only be a $3.7 billion net loss over the 2 years.
However, I doubt the average spending will stay at current levels, so the net loss will likely be more. I will continue to look at the spending side and get some estimates of impact.
Major businesses include; Attire, Entertainment, Venue Location, Catering & Rentals, Photography & Video, and Planning. All other business types considered Minor types for the purposes of the survey results.
Entertainment, Catering, Rentals and Other (Minor types) are seeing the most postponements to later in 2020.
Planning, Other (Minor types), Attire, and Venue location seeing the most postponements to 2021.
Catering, Rentals, Photography & Video, Other (Minor types) seeing the most cancellations
The interesting thing about all 3 are that you can see a pattern of what couples deem less important. For example, Other (minor types) appear in all 3 categories at the top. That is likely a sign that spending will be less in that category. Higher cancellations in catering and rentals also point to couples possibly cutting guest lists.