POST PANDEMIC WEDDINGS: My husband and I on our wedding day. Picture taken by Duncan McCall.
As a new virus spread worldwide and reached the UK, life stopped, with people told not to leave their homes, except to collect essentials and for daily exercise.
Non-essential shops closed, theatres closed, pubs shut and for many, big life events were put on hold, including weddings. Couples who had spent thousands on their perfect day, had their day cancelled, not knowing when they would be able to set a date again.
Meanwhile, some couples were in the early stages of planning, creating guest lists, and budgets and looking for potential venues. They had no idea when they would be able to begin their searches again, and book their day, as with venues closed, they were unable to visit them and bookings for weddings weren’t being accepted.
I was one of these couples left wondering when I would be able to book my wedding day. We had been engaged for five months and we were beginning to look at what we wanted for our day and where in the North East could hold our wedding in 2021.
According to the Office of National Statistics, in 2019, 219,850 weddings took place in England and Wales, this was a decrease of 6.4% from 2018. And 8,625 of these weddings took place across the North East.
According to the Wedding Taskforce over 264,000 weddings were postponed in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, and an estimated 278,000 couples were planning to get married from 2021 onwards, taking the number of weddings after the pandemic to over 550,000.
For almost 18 months couples were uncertain about how their day would be allowed to pan out. How many guests could attend, whether dancing and singing would be allowed and where it could be held.
With weddings cancelled and restrictions changing, couples were left with choices to make, should they wait until the pandemic is over, or just get married and have less guests. Rules for guest numbers fluctuated between 15 and 30 and guests were required to wear masks and testing enforced.
Some decided to just get married in a registry office or registered venue with a few guests and have a larger party after the pandemic, while others waited for all restrictions to be lifted before they started planning. This has led to 2022 being a busy year for weddings, with suppliers seeing an increase in demand as couples move their wedding date and others waited set their first date after the pandemic.
My husband and I decided we would spend 2020 and 2021 saving for our wedding so we could have the day we dreamed of when we were able to. By spring 2021 we felt we were ready to begin the search for a venue and after several months of research and waiting for venues to open up for viewings, we secured Lumley Castle in Chester-le-Street for our wedding.
When venues started to reopen and couples could visit, many found it difficult to secure dates they wanted due to demand, having to wait longer than they wished, or be flexible with dates. Wedding insurance also became difficult to get, so many couples found themselves not taking it out and hoping that nothing would lead to them losing everything.
We didn’t take insurance out, but spent time checking contracts and kept track of every penny spent, in case there were any problems. We did however ensure we took out travel insurance for our honeymoon as soon as we booked.
One couple who got married this summer in County Durham, was Andy and Rebecca Graham. They got engaged in February 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic began and found themselves waiting until the worst of the pandemic had passed to book their wedding. While they were able to save and research venues and create a guest list, they were unable to proceed much further.
In the summer of 2021, they began their search for a venue in the North East and soon found the perfect one in Beamish. However, due to more couples looking to get married after the pandemic, Andy and Rebecca were unable to secure the date they had wanted.
After several phone calls to the council and venue, they were able to secure an alternative date and they then began the task of sourcing suppliers. Many suppliers across County Durham and Tyne and Wear saw an increase in demand as the number of weddings booked for 2022 increased.
Meanwhile, many suppliers found themselves with cancelled bookings and unable to work in 2020. Duncan McCall is a wedding photographer who covers the North East and parts of Scotland. He found himself with lots of cancellations, and when lockdown was announced he had only shot one wedding.
For several months he lived with great uncertainty and by the end of 2020, he had only shot three weddings. Restrictions for weddings left Duncan with financial pressures and uncertainty as to when he would be able to return to full-time wedding photography again.
A smaller part of Duncan’s business had been property photography and with fewer weddings to shoot, he turned his focus on working with estate agents to photograph properties going onto the market. During the second half of 2020 and throughout 2021, this became his main source of income as many weddings were moved to 2022.
He said: “2022 has been a very busy year, there were new bookings plus a good amount of 2020 rescheduled weddings happened in 2022. Property photography was also busy and nearing the end of the year it now looks like both weddings and property photography will be going back to normal levels for 2023.”
Duncan has also seen a change in weddings trends since the pandemic including their size. The restrictions during the pandemic have led to people thinking about how many guests they want to invite and smaller weddings becoming more frequent.
He said: “I think there has been a trend for smaller weddings in general. 100 plus guests were the general amount at weddings pre-pandemic but I’ve definitely seen a reduction in guests and shot a lot more intimate smaller weddings this year.”
Now weddings have returned to normal, wedding photography has returned to normal. However, Duncan now hopes to take on more commercial work in 2023 after seeing the benefits of have several streams of income through his work.
Overall the pandemic had a huge impact on weddings, from them being cancelled and moved, to people waiting until it was over to book. Many couples have now enjoyed their wedding, or planning their day knowing they are able to have the day they dream of. Including myself.
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