Press release: 27th May 2022
Wedding venues were forced to remain closed throughout the pandemic and are now facing crippling costs in order to service the huge backlog of weddings.
The UK wedding industry is experiencing the highest demand for weddings since 1984. For the majority of these weddings, the contracts were agreed well before energy and cost of living prices soared, leaving businesses covering the deficit.
Venues are particularly hard hit. They are experiencing higher staffing and catering costs than ever before and the barns, stately homes and marquees favoured for British weddings are notoriously expensive to heat in the winter and ventilate in the summer.
A recent poll by the wedding planning website Guides for Brides showed 88% of couples would find it unreasonable for a business to increase their charges to cover unforeseen costs, once a price has been confirmed.
Couples are clearly feeling the pinch too. 28% said they would postpone their wedding to a time they could better afford it, if they were given the choice. Of the couples surveyed, 84% did not factor a cost of living increase into their wedding budget, despite 75% planning their wedding at least 18 months in advance. 35% of couples booked their venue more than 2 years in advance.
Nikita Thorne, Head of Strategy at Guides for Brides says couples won’t be put off: “The wedding sector saw huge support from couples during the pandemic and that hasn’t wavered. They just want to get wed and celebrate their love with their family and friends in a full and timely manner. The bookings are flowing in, whether the income covers businesses’ increased running costs is another question entirely. We’ve seen a leap in 2024 bookings from couples keen to fix prices now, which suggests they are expecting prices to continue to rise”.
Peter Buxton, owner of Kirtlington Park, one of the many stately home wedding venues with particularly high heating and maintenance costs said: “Some of our couples are funding their first home as well as their wedding. With the current media attention on energy costs, this can result in couples reviewing their wedding budget. Allied to the strains of getting through the pandemic, we and other venues have adopted more flexible pricing to help our couples use their budget effectively, while balancing our own increasing costs.”
A Wedding at Kirtlington Park, Image by Suzy Elizabeth Photography
Alison Hargreaves, Managing Director at Guides for Brides, is calling on the government to cap energy prices for businesses, not just households. “Couples typically budget for their wedding more than 2 years in advance. To minimise costs for couples, venues and suppliers need to be able to accurately predict prices and it’s impossible with the energy price hikes some businesses are experiencing. We’ll lose even more of our iconic stately homes and barn wedding venues if we don’t support them now. The government failed to act fast enough to support the wedding sector during the pandemic. Wedding businesses are now having to deliver pre-pandemic contracts at post-pandemic prices. We need some level of certainty so we can offer couples the confidence they need to plan and book.”