Post-pandemic weddings: Priorities shift to pared-back celebrations

Aoife Caffrey worked in events for over 10 years before she started her own wedding planning business. That was just a couple of months before the pandemic hit in 2020. Fast forward to 2022 and, post-pandemic, the wedding scene is back stronger than ever, but following seemingly endless postponements – with some couples having waited two years for their big day – she has noticed a trend towards pared-back celebrations.

“I feel like since Covid, it has made people think, well, that cousin of ours got married with only 25 people, so will all our aunts and uncles be offended if they are not invited?

“I would say for me, personally, there is a split of clients who want a wedding of like 70 or 80 guests, and those that still want the 150-200 kind of numbers,” she said.

The pandemic has also shifted priorities in couples’ lives as “people are happier to go with, say, 60-70, and put that money [saved] towards their house, or some of them already maybe had a baby in the meantime,” she added.

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Changed mindset

Wedding photographer Jason McCarthy has also found those who attended 50-people weddings while Covid-19 restrictions were in place are leaning towards having smaller wedding themselves.

“People are now more open, and they have the option that a 50-guest wedding is not a bad thing. A lot of people who did go for that, even guests, I have heard say, ‘Oh I was at so and so’s wedding, there was only 50 there and I actually really liked it’.

“I think it has definitely left a mark . . . It has definitely changed the mindset and plans around it,” he noted.

Splashing out on dresses for the big day seems also to be changing, for some at least. Rena Kotlova, who owns alterations shop Silver Needle in Galway city, has noticed brides coming in with second-hand, display or sale dresses nowadays.

“Before second-hand was not too often, after Covid it was every dress nearly was from display or from the sale,” she said. Prior to the pandemic if a dress was second-hand “it was something very unique. Now, it’s not.”

Leftover dresses

Although she has many new brides to deal with, she still has three dresses for weddings which were supposed to take place in 2020, down from over 10 previously. “Most of them, they put on weight . . . They have a child, and they postpone . . . It is complicated for them.”

Rebecca Synnott, a Dublin-based baker whose company Synnott’s Signature Bakes was only newly established when Covid shut down the country, has found couples throughout the pandemic “got back to the reason why they wanted to get married in the first place. They wanted to be surrounded by friends and family and really celebrate their own kind of love in a way.”

Ms Synnott’s biggest struggle since 2020 has been the increase in costs of supplies and equipment following the most recent spike in inflation.

“As soon as you send a final invoice to someone then the price is set, so I can’t really do much about it, there’s not a lot of limbo for me. The cost of everything has gone up, and people have budgets in mind but, at the same time, I can’t undercut myself,” she said.

Inflation and rising costs are also on the mind of Cathal O’Donoghue, owner of C&C Executive Travel, which provides wedding cars and shuttle busses for weddings, hen parties and stag parties, in Co Clare.

“I would honour the prices that people had booked in, but new bookings have gone up by 10-15 per cent now, at least,” he said.

McCarthy has been hit by rising costs too: “I have been taking somewhat of a hit financially speaking because my prices have gone up since people booked me prior to Covid,” he said. “I am honouring that, I am not expecting more and the couples are really appreciative of that.”

Full calendar

But inquiries have just gone through the roof: “I am absolutely slammed this year and my calendar is pretty much nearly full already for next year.”

Performer with wedding band Pink Champagne and founder of the Wedding Band Association Cathal Molloy observed some musicians "had their weekend back" during the pandemic and, as a result, left the industry.

“We have seen people retraining and moving into different jobs just to get through the pandemic . . . even close friends of mine are not too keen to come back, but it is a very small percentage,” he said.

“I’ve had about five, maybe six wedding couples who had to actually cancel or postpone [their wedding] for this year because they ended up having a baby and, among my colleagues within the wedding industry, they’re all hearing that feedback.”

Hotelier and ambassador for Harvey's Point Hotel in Co Donegal Noel Cunningham said more couples were now inclined to go with a midweek wedding, as weekends were booked up.

DNA attitudes

“We are in that extraordinary position this year, like so many hotels and venues of having weddings on days that we would never have had weddings before, for example, Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. They were just not days that people got married on.”

However, he doesn’t agree weddings have been pared back. “There’s always a percentage of people who want that small intimate family and friends celebration. But I firmly believe, and I see it myself . . . that people in general if they wanted a wedding, 90 per cent of them still want that Irish wedding, it’s in our DNA.”

Couples have also been left with extra anxieties coming up to their big day, fearing older relatives joining them might still be at risk of picking up the virus. “A wedding couple might be worried about, ‘Oh my God I wonder if it is okay to have my great-grandmother there, she’s in her 80s or 90s.’” he said.

But Cunningham feels some things will never change. “The Irish wedding is as much a part of our life as the wake, a good wake, a good funeral, a good wedding, they are part of our lives, a significant part of the fabric of our Irish society. They’re all there for their own purposes, that will not change, and it has not changed.”