For industry members, the 2022 wedding season is unlike anything they’ve ever experienced. But some are wondering what their businesses will look like after the chaos subsides. “I’ve been a wedding planner for about 15 years now. This is by far the busiest wedding season I’ve ever seen in my career. It’s crazy,” said Shalini Misir, owner of Maid for the Bride and Swag Events in Thunder Bay. , Ont. Some industry experts say this season has seen a “wedding boom,” with vendors handling delayed events due to pandemic postponements. “We have about three years of weddings that we do in one year,” Misir said. “It’s all piling up this year and it’s just a non-stop, non-stop wedding season. And we’re here for it and we’re excited about it. “But it’s crazy.” Some industry insiders are calling this season a “wedding boom,” as vendors work through a flurry of pandemic-related weddings. (Photo by Maria Maria) An average of about 61,000 marriages were recorded annually from 2015 to 2019, according to the Ontario Data Directory. But in 2020, when the pandemic began, it was down to just over 40,000. In 2021, the number of registered marriages reached about 50,000. Weddings are big business, estimated to be worth more than $2 billion in Ontario alone, according to consumer information website HelloSafe. The Wedding Planners Institute of Canada, meanwhile, estimates that the Canadian wedding industry is worth $5 billion annually. A recent article from HelloSafe suggests that Ontario’s wedding industry lost $780 million in 2020 due to lockdowns and other restrictions. He estimates that overall, 2022 could be a record year, with around 70,000 weddings in the province.
Businesses face staffing, supply shortages
While industry members are excited to be back in business this summer, the wedding boom has faced challenges. One of the big issues for Misir has been the general understaffing it has seen other businesses face. “I had to let go of all my planners and coordinators because we had two years without weddings. So then I had to rehire and retrain for one of the busiest wedding seasons. It was really hard.” Many vendors do two to four weddings a week, which Misir considers unsustainable. “It creates a little bit of burnout, I think, in general. I know the majority of us salespeople usually take a weekend off in the summer to be human. That didn’t happen,” he said. “It was the hardest because I think as wedding vendors, we all give it, we give every wedding our heart and soul.” Shalini Misir, lead planner with Maid for the Bride in Thunder Bay, Ont., says in her 15 years as a wedding planner, this is the busiest. (Submitted by Shalini Misir) For Natalia Fernandez, a florist and designer in Thunder Bay, staffing shortages and other flower-specific industry issues have put the reality of pandemic recovery out of reach this season. “We source flowers from all over the world. The flower supply is affected worldwide. So, not only with COVID, but a lot of the political issues that are happening in some countries, for example, in South America. “We’re seeing prices now from a wholesale level that are unprecedented in the 10 years I’ve been in this business. I’ve never seen prices like this.”
“There is no profit margin”
Fernandez said political unrest in countries like Ecuador has created a major supply chain issue in the flower industry, leaving her to crunch the numbers. “When you look at the number of weddings I do, it’s like I’m incredibly busy, like all of us. But when you look at it from a business perspective… just the sheer cost of everything, the profit margin isn’t there. And so, yeah, it was a fight,” he added. Some wedding industry experts believe the boom will taper off by next year, even with many vendors already booked for 2024. (Maria Maria Photography) Industry experts believe the current wedding boom will taper off by next year, even with many vendors already booked for 2024. Misir said she hopes things will stabilize in the industry and grow even after such tough economic times. “We’ve seen some of our favorite people lose their businesses or have to close. And now we’re trying to make up for it. We don’t have as many vendors as we did two years ago and we don’t have as many startups because people are afraid to get into the industry when it has not been so supported.”
