How COVID-19 Impacts the Wedding Industry
There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the wedding planning business right now. As current events unfold, brides and grooms are having to make difficult decisions surrounding their upcoming big days.
Certainly our couples need our empathy as they are impacted by the almost hourly changes that require them to make snap decisions, with very little information and a ton of uncertainty for the foreseeable future.
This kind of decision-making requires a lot of trust in us, as planners ,and our ability to ‘crystal ball’ to some degree. We work in a world where emotions and logic intersect. This is a particularly interesting place to be in that largely our clients are professionals accustomed to making logic based decisions, but when it comes to planning an intensely personal experience, such as a wedding, logic and reason have no bearing on how that experience will make them feel. There is a real sense of loss going on here with each wedding we postpone.
Usually our clients hire artisans, not mega chain, large corporate goods, buildings and services. When clients cancel, it unfortunately has catastrophic ramifications for the smaller businesses to stay afloat.
We have an opportunity to bridge this fear gap by being real, staying optimistic and doing our best to keep everyone inside the communication circle for each wedding and event. Communication and confidence is calming.
Our venue and service provider partner relationships are imperative in helping clients realize their future memories. We, indeed, are all in this together and when our clients and partners feel that on a visceral level, that you truly have their backs collectively, it makes way for some incredible opportunities to deliver even more heart felt occasions.
We work with some of the most creative, inspired and resourceful wedding and event pros. Daily, through this evolving coronavirus situation (and evening before this with the Northern California wildfires), we are left without words at their absolute commitment to each event, as though it were their own event. There are no road blocks, in their minds, only taking the next left or right in terms of making way around obstacles.
Our protocols have changed a bit to raise to the immediacy of our current climate. Having partners just a text away as decisions are made, has been extremely important in securing new dates and making alternate plans and providing needed calm. Relationships, as always, are everything. Even more so now. Be real and take care of your people and they will take care of you. This has been our motto and is now more apparent than ever.
Cole Drake Events has an abundance of optimism and confidence in our industry. We will keep doing what we always do because that is what we are meant to.
Our team has also contributed to articles highlighting our response as well as other planners’. You can view our statements in Fortune and on Carats & Cake.
