McKinney April 2022

BUSINESS Wedding industry experiences ‘boom’ following pandemic lull

BY BROOKLYNN COOPER

[legally] married,” said Klassen, former owner of the wedding venue Gather in DowntownMcKinney. While celebrations of love are on the rise, local industry experts have saidMcKinney is recovering from the eects of the pandemic. “We’ve lost a lot of businesses because of COVID-[19], either because they didn’t have the nancial ability to withstand it or because they lost sta,” Kidd said. Businesses that have survived the worst of the pandemic have had to adjust to prices increasing across the industry. The cost of oral arrange- ments has gone up, Kidd said. Most venues that are operating today pivoted in some way tomake it through the shutdowns. Historic Chestnut Square oered elopements— outdoor ceremonies for 10 people or fewer—once the initial restrictions were lifted. When city ordinances allowed for 50% capacity, the historic village shifted to what Ducote calls “micro-weddings.” Those twomodied ceremonies are what allowed the nonprot to stay aoat for most of 2020 and 2021, Ducote said. She added that even though Chestnut Square has been operating at full capacity for both its indoor and outdoor ceremonies, the elopements andmicro-weddings are still popular today. “There’s people still aected by [the pandemic] nancially in their own personal lives,” Ducote said. “Instead of having a 200-person wedding, now they’re forced to do 50 people just

Withmore than 50 venues and a variety of wedding-related busi- nesses—bakers, bridal shops and orists—McKinney has been a wedding destination for years. Although the city was unsuccessful in a 2019 attempt to earn a state designation as theWedding Capital of North Texas, the wedding industry has continued to prosper, according to Visit McKinney, the city’s convention and visitors bureau. In fact, 2022 is a “booming” year for weddings, saidWendy Kidd, founder and owner of Each & Every Detail wedding planning inMcKinney. Nationwide, about 2.5 million cere- monies are scheduled for 2022. That is the most the country has seen in a year since 1984, according to TheWedding Report, a trade group that gathers data through a survey of vendors and con- sumers. The abundance of weddings is a sharp contrast to 2020, which only saw 1.27 million ceremonies. Each & Every Detail has nished work on all the weddings that were rescheduled due to COVID-19, Kidd said. Chestnut Square, a nonprot McKinney venue with indoor and outdoor wedding packages, has one more reschedule to complete, said Kim Ducote, wedding and special event manager for the nonprot. But many other vendors may be still working through reschedules, McKinney wedding planner Jennifer Klassen said. “A percentage of the 2022 weddings are really do-overs from [20]19 and 2020, and they’ve already gotten

McKinney wedding planner Wendy Kidd walks with a client before her ceremony begins.

COURTESY EACH & EVERY DETAIL

TYING THE KNOT The wedding uptick this year is not abnormal based on the last decade of data for the nation. The decline in 2020 and 2021 was due to COVID-19.

2.5M

2.47M*

1.5M

1.27M

Year

*NOTE: 202225 NUMBERS ARE PROJECTIONS.

SOURCE: THE WEDDING REPORTCOMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER

because of budget. … So I think [the micro-wedding] helps for those folks that were aected by it long-term.” Chestnut Square typically hosts anywhere from 70-90 weddings a year, according to data from the nonprot. In 2018, the venue hosted 72 cere- monies. It hosted 78 in 2019. In 2020, there were 92 weddings at the historic village. That jump was due to hosting

multiple elopements per day, Ducote said. Last year, Chestnut Square hosted 81 weddings. Kidd advised couples to be patient with wedding sta during this unchar- acteristically busy time. “It’s not just, ‘Oh, we’re busy.’ It is more weddings than we’ve ever seen after two years of devastation,” Kidd said.

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