MISSOULA — Love is in the air more than usual this year.
According to a survey by “The Knot,” there will be more weddings in the U.S. this year than any other year since 1984.
The trends may be different, think smaller sleeves and smaller hair, but the wedding boom is back, and it’s yet another byproduct of the pandemic.
“I was like ‘Oh there’s no way…It’s gonna take a natural disaster for a bride to postpone or cancel her wedding,’ and here we are!” said Velvet Bride owner Emily Madieros.
One study found that 82% of weddings worldwide that were supposed to take place in April 2020 were postponed.
“I don’t think people expected to have to postpone as long as they did or maybe as many times as they did,” said Madieros. “I’ve seen it have to happen more than once for some of our brides, which is just heartbreaking.”
Sifting through sparkly silhouettes and sharing this year’s wedding trends, Madieros said she doubles as a wedding planner. Needless to say, her summer is booked.
“I’m seeing a lot of Fridays, I think I have one Sunday, I even have a Monday wedding in June,” said Madieros.
Across town, another tier of the wedding industry is seeing a season like no other.
“Busier and busier than we’ve ever been,” confirmed Bernice’s Bakery cake manager Shelbie White.
The bakery has even turned away some couples. Not only are they booked up, they can’t afford to get burnt out.
“Right now we only have two cake decorators, and decorating a wedding cake is a lot different than decorating a regular cake,” explained White.
Wedding cakes require unique layers, frosting and filling. They have more decoration, more precision, and they call for extremely careful deliveries.
“My bakers work from six to two, typically, in a regular day, but we've been so busy with producing that sometimes it's 2 to 2:30 to 3 o'clock,” said White.
White told MTN News they have 4 to 8 weddings in the books every weekend thru September, and that doesn’t include their weekday weddings.
“There’s never an off day, unfortunately.”
Inflation and supply chain woes will taper, but the hustle and bustle of the wedding biz may never slow down.
“With the pandemic, a lot of people learned to value time with their loved ones,” said White. “And they're getting married and spending the time that they want to with the person they love, and I truly don't think it is ever going to slow down. People will always get married and will always eat cake.”
“I think I have seven or eight weddings booked for 2023 next year, so I don’t think it’s going to slow down anytime soon,” confirmed Madieros.
