WASHINGTON — After more than a year of delays, cancellations and uncertainty, weddings are back — Delta variant be damned.
The surge is creating challenges for wedding planners desperate for income, who face a decimated supply chain and diminished staffing.
But weddings are relentless.
"People have pent up demand for getting married," said Katie Martin, founder and C.E.O of Elegance & Simplicity, Inc. in D.C.
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Martin is dealing with five years' worth of couples all at once. There's those who have been planning a wedding since 2019, the couples whose 2020 plans were doomed and delayed, the ones furiously cramming their weddings into the remainder of this year, and then there's those who are setting dates for 2022 and even 2023, Martin said.
She's taking it day by day.
"Some of our biggest problems that we're coming up against are supply," Martin said. "Half of the famers in the United Stated — just for flowers — went out of business last year. And couples don't care. They want what they want."
Enter vaccines into the equation.
The political theater surrounding the shots creates an added complication for both couples and wedding planners, Martin said.
"People are wanting to have big events again, but also questioning the fact [that] many people will come but you have to be vaccinated. Some people don't care about vaccinations. And so there's a lot of political aspects that are going on with weddings right now."
It's a tricky line for wedding planners who have a responsibility to host safe events, but are hesitant to alienate clientele.
"We don't care what your political lean is, we just want you to have a beautiful wedding day," Martin said. "Unfortunately with the pandemic, it's made it very difficult."
Martin, who founded her company in 1998, was forced to lay off her entire staff when the pandemic hit. She kept only one person onboard.
A year later, she's rebuilt a team of about 20 people, she said.
Just in time.
"A year ago I had maybe one wedding on the books for July," Martin said."We have 20 this month now."
Ten of those weddings, Martin said, were booked less than four months in advance.
The peak of the pandemic presented challenges that were both unbearable and unforeseeable for small businesses across the country — but this chapter is introducing its own challenges.
"Don't get me wrong, last year was a disaster," Martin said. "Our small company...we lost almost a million dollars in sales. And so we definitely want to sell as much as we can. But we're also just human."