‘EVERYONE WILL LOSE THEIR WEDDINGS TO ENGLAND’
The wedding industry in Wales is worried it will lose couples to venues over the border if a road map to re-opening is not put in place. Anna Lewis reports...
IN JUST over a month’s time, Catrin Bowen and Ryan Evans are set to tie the knot. After postponing their original wedding last August, and cutting their guest list from 150 to just 30 people, they are getting the final touches ready ahead of what they hope will be the perfect day at Plas Dinam country house in the Powys village of Llandinam.
But despite a year of leading up to this moment, the couple from Neath still don’t know if their wedding will go ahead – and say they would have more certainty if they were in England.
Ryan, a teacher, said: “We’re meant to get married five weeks on Tuesday, and I know there are a number of more important things that the Welsh Government have got to announce, but at the moment I genuinely couldn’t tell you what the likelihood is the two of us getting married is.
“For Catrin, and any bride, it’s the build-up to the wedding that’s as good as the real thing. For me it’s a case of getting a suit and turning up but for any bride, they shouldn’t have to go through it.
“We’re in limbo, we don’t know what’s happening.”
Since Monday, wedding venues in Wales have been allowed to hold ceremonies for the first time since December. For couples, however, the restrictions are limited to only that – with receptions indoors and outdoors not yet allowed.
At the next 21-day review on Friday, businesses within tourism and hospitality in Wales will learn whether they will be able to reopen in time for Easter.
The change also comes after a potential road map was set out in England last month, pointing towards a possible date of June 21 for the end of social distancing restrictions.
According to the couple, and wedding venues themselves in Wales, an equivalent timeline is essential to stop the wedding industry from suffering further at a time when it is already on its knees.
And while Catrin and Ryan, who have been together since the age of 18, are understanding of the situation, they are anxious for news at a time where three-week restriction reviews could leave them on the cusp of having their big day.
Physiotherapist Catrin said: “Last August we accepted we’d move [the wedding] to just shy of a year. That happened, we swallowed the pill and got on with it.
“Then we came to April and we swallowed another pill and cut it to 30.
“Now we have to try and think about moving the date; in my head I feel there’s no more capacity to think about it.
“We were happy to wait a year but now it’s getting to the point where we just want to get on with it.
“Ryan’s a teacher so from our point of view we have to work around half-terms. I work for the NHS and a lot of my friends are nurses, I’ve got a sister who’s a doctor, Ryan’s sister’s a pharmacist so leave is a big thing as well.
“I completely understand that the Government can’t give specific dates but there’s never any rough guide.
“Weddings could go ahead at the end of last year, October, November, December time, when Covid deaths were probably at their highest point. Now we’ve come right down and I appreciate the Government’s point now is to have caution with the last lockdown they want to put us in, but it’s just so frustrating.
Ryan, 27, added: “[Venue owner] Eldrydd has been fantastic and given us alternative dates but we’ve already paid a number of deposits for caterers, photographer, videographer, entertainment in the night, photo booths – you name it.
“They’re all locked in now for April 6, they can do it. But if we change our date and postpone again they might not be available and no other photographer may be available because they’re all booked up.”
For Eldrydd Lamp, owner of Plas Dinam, the road map announced in England causes stress not only for her Welsh couples. She believes if equivalent dates are not set out in Wales predicting the end of restrictions there is a risk couples will begin to cancel in earnest, and move their business across to England.
Out of the 43 weddings she has planned for this year, she says none of her couples would be willing to have a ceremony without being able to celebrate afterwards.
Eldrydd, who runs the wedding business at her family home with husband Tyson, said: “Before Boris’ announcement we lost a third of 2021, they’d moved or cancelled and that was across the board for all wedding venues. From the first couple of months of this year we all lost about a third of our bookings because of the uncertainty, no other reason.
“Boris’ announcement has brought certainty to England, so they know where they are going and all our couples are very keen to move in line with England.
“I’m having to make these decisions, open up new dates for them, but if Wales says something different, we are scuppered.
“We desperately need to know from the Welsh Government what the plan is for the year.
“You’re trying to run a business with 40 dates flying around in the year not knowing when they should land or what you can do and you’re just guessing when you give them new dates.
“Everyone in the wedding industry is on their knees. In the first lockdown we went at it, we had all our weddings for 2020 and we all went at it and reorganised and we had some steam then and we could do it.
“Now we’re sitting here, having worked full time on rearranging weddings – not a penny is coming in. We’re still sitting here rearranging and it’s miserable.”
Since the pandemic started Eldrydd says she has received just £16,000 support from the Welsh Government to maintain her 15-bedroom wedding venue – the same grant she says would be given to a one-room shop.
The mother of four is particularly concerned after hearing of other venues experiencing cancellations in favour of other venues.
Eldrydd, 47, said: “2020 was going to be a great year for weddings for us, you make the investments in getting ready for 2020.
“We put a new glass room on the stables and got it all ready so we’ve invested a lot and we’re still waiting to get that money in.
“In England now they’ve got hope that there will be weddings this summer so that’s really stopped people cancelling now. If Wales doesn’t come up with something soon then we will see cancellations from Wales to England. I know other wedding venues that have had cancellations and when they’ve looked into it they’ve cancelled in Wales and rebooked in England.”
Phil Godsal, owner of Iscoyd Park wedding venue in Wrexham agrees.
A member of the UK Weddings Task Force, he has also called on the Welsh Government to announce a road map for venues to plan ahead.
He said: “If we don’t get any road map in Wales everyone will lose their weddings over the border to England. That’s the thing we are really really worried about.”
He added: “We all understand that actually in retrospect that what we all wanted was very difficult to give before the vaccines but now with the rollout we just feel it’s a different landscape.
“[With a date] we can try and work out how the hell to get to that point financially. We are all quite desperate for some good news.”
A Welsh Government spokesman said: “The First Minister has published a document on how Wales will come out of lockdown. We have clearly set out that our first priority is to get as many children and students back to school as possible.
“We have also signalled that in the next three-week review, we will consider the restrictions around nonessential retail and close contact services, and the possibility of re-opening self-contained accommodation for Easter.
“In the last few months, we have made huge strides in rolling out vaccines and the public health situation is improving every day, thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of everyone. But we have seen time and again just how quickly the situation can deteriorate in a matter of weeks, and faced with new variants of coronavirus, we cannot provide as much certainty and predictability as we would like.
“Our approach will be to ease restrictions in gradual steps, listening to the medical and scientific advice and assessing the impact of the changes we make as we go along.
“We will give as much notice to people and businesses as we can. When we believe that it’s safe to ease restrictions we will do so.
“What we don’t want to do is raise people’s hopes and expectations too early, and then disappoint them.”