Newsletter and Subscription Sign Up
Subscribe

Saying “I Do” to New Trends

Published Monday Apr 11, 2022

Author Dave Solomon

After two difficult years for would-be brides and bridegrooms, the wedding industry is getting over its cold feet and once again making it down the aisle. But weddings, like many other cherished rituals, have been permanently transformed by the pandemic. Those who are fans of the large traditional wedding with 200 guests at a church strewn with flowers, a “just-married” parade to the reception hall, followed by a limo ride to the airport for a honeymoon in the tropics, will be part of a small minority in the years ahead.

New Hampshire wedding planners say that the transformation of weddings into smaller, more personal events with fewer of the traditional elements was well underway in the years leading up to the pandemic but has since accelerated. Some of the old favorites like the garter toss, bouquet toss, receiving line and cake cutting (with the face-smooshing) are now passe.

“Especially the receiving line,” says Amanda Storace, owner of Moments to Remember weddings and events in New Boston. “People just do not want to touch as many hands.”


A wedding planned by Moments to Remember. Courtesy photo.


A celebration once characterized by familiar and universally anticipated rituals is becoming a platform for the personal preferences, creativity and priorities of the bride and groom as weddings resume with gusto. The father-daughter and mother-son dance, as well as the toasts, remain popular, but even those are changing. “I had a wedding in early September where the maid of honor rapped her toast to a background beat,” Storace recalls.

“Experts predict that 2022 and 2023 will be huge years for weddings,” according to a forecast published by theknot.com in December. Most venues are already fully booked for 2022 and are booking into 2023. “The world of weddings will not only bounce back: it’s going to be a completely different landscape,” celebrity event planner David Tutera told The Knot. “After a difficult period, people have a newfound sense of what it means to celebrate joy. We are about to experience an abundance of brilliance, innovation and creativity in our world of weddings.”

Storace says business at Moments to Remember almost completely shut down in 2020, but she recovered with 16 weddings booked in 2021. (She aims for 20  annually.) “I now have a part-time assistant and am completely booked for 2022,” she says, with 20 weddings already scheduled as of October 2021.

The Sequel Wedding
Even the fundamental structure of the traditional wedding—a commitment service followed by a reception—is yielding to the effects of a two-year pandemic. Some couples are even celebrating their nuptials in stages.

“The trend has been called sequel weddings,” says Rebecca Baker, owner of Two Hearts Connect, a wedding and event planning business in Concord. These are events for couples who have already gone to the Town Hall or maybe to a church, had a small intimate wedding with immediate family and later, when conditions allow, have a larger celebration with extended family and friends.


Renewing vows and sequel weddings have in gained popularity. Courtesy of Moments to Remember.


Sometimes a commitment ceremony is repeated at the sequel wedding, and sometimes it’s just a party with a toast and some other bells and whistles. “Some couples just didn’t want to keep putting it off because of COVID, so they decided to just get it done and have the party after,” says Baker.

Storace too has seen the rise of the sequel. “I had quite a few one-year renewals this year,” she says. “They got married in 2020 but wanted to have a renewal ceremony in front of their family.”

Smaller Weddings
The average size of the wedding has declined significantly. “Before COVID, it was not uncommon to have 150 to 200 guests on average,” says Baker. “A lot of the weddings I’ve been involved with in the past year have been really small. Around 80 people was my biggest one, and I don’t think they are going to get much bigger any time soon.”

While the pressures of social distancing and other restrictions are expected to ease over time, smaller weddings are likely here to stay due to skyrocketing costs. Most weddings now are paid for by the couple.

Storace has also seen the shrinking number of guests. “Before 2020, most of my weddings were easily close to 200. I only had one wedding this past year that was more than 150.”


Event planner Amanda Storace, assists a bride. Courtesy photo.


“I think the downsizing is going to stay for a while,” she says. “People who’ve been able to go to weddings have seen that when you have a smaller wedding and fewer people, it’s more personalized; you have more one-on-one with the couple. I’ve heard that the smaller weddings are going to stay for the next couple of years, if not five. I’m projecting at least five years, because I’m already booking into 2023, and they are on the smaller end.”

Other than buying a new home, there are probably few life-changing events that contribute more to the local economy than a good-sized wedding. Caterers, photographers, venues, florists and other vendors rely on weddings as a substantial portion of their business. Will those businesses suffer from the shrinking size of the ceremonies?

“I don’t think the contraction will hurt vendors because a smaller group doesn’t necessarily mean a smaller budget for things like florals,” says Storace. “It means we are going to use florals in a different way.”

More Personal
Instead, Storace says the changes have actually created opportunities for new vendors in the wedding industry for things like specialty lights, pyrotechnics, aerial photography and hybrid event technology.

“Next year, I have 10 weddings at Allrose Farm [in Greenfield] and those 10 weddings are completely different,” says Storace. “I have one bride who wants specialty lights to hang from the ceiling so there is almost a bistro setting in the barn; I have another who is bringing in a big elaborate flower display that is going to go around the whole door. I have one couple bringing in pyrotechnics. Every event, no matter what, even in the same location, is so different.”

One change that can be attributed directly to the pandemic is the hybrid wedding, with a Zoom link for guests who can’t attend in person. Using a tracking camera that follows the bride throughout the ceremony, Storace was able to live broadcast a wedding for one bridegroom whose aunt contracted COVID two weeks before the ceremony.

Restrictions Vary
Julie Carlisle, owner of the event planning firm Occasions by Carlisle in Manchester, has also seen shrinking guest lists and changing rituals. Like others in the industry, her business suffered in 2020, rebounded in 2021, and she already has 18 weddings lined up for 2022. As an event planner who serves both NH and Massachusetts, she sees a different environment on either side of the border when it comes to COVID restrictions. There are more restrictions in the Bay State if that better suits their preferences.

“We had an event at a Massachusetts venue recently and had to submit copies of all our vaccination cards to the venue, and so did the guests,” she says. “A lot of towns in Massachusetts still have mask mandates. We did a wedding at the Marlborough Country Club, and there was a mask mandate going into any common area.”

Occasions by Carlisle produced weddings during the pandemic that required flexibility and creativity including shifting
a wedding from an indoor venue to an outdoor location and requiring masks for all guests, above, and placing air purifiers on tables, below.

Most NH venues follow state guidelines, which now do not require any proof of vaccination, mask wearing or social distancing. “There are some [NH] venues that ask that everyone be vaccinated, but there’s no push for proof,” Carlisle says.

With Omicron surging and new variants continuing to emerge, “there is simply more uncertainty,” Carlisle says. “The numbers in New Hampshire are starting to scare a lot of people. I’m hearing couples again asking, ‘Do you think we should book it?’ because not everyone is vaccinated. I [had] brides in January, and they are petrified that something [was] going to happen with COVID that [would] blow them out of the water. Now we always have to have a Plan B.”

All Stories