COVID-19 crashes Memphis weddings
Businesses hit by pandemic expect a busy fall season
On a balmy March day in East Memphis, City Council member Worth Morgan stood in his church, St. John’s Episcopal, and said the two words he couldn’t wait to say: “I do.” The day looked almost nothing like what he and his wife, Bonner Williams Morgan, had envisioned in the months leading up to March 8, when Shelby County reported its first case of the novel coronavirus, a Memphian returning from Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
For starters, they had planned for 500 guests, filling the church to near-capacity.
Instead, there were nine, including the minister and photographer. And the wedding was supposed to happen in April instead of March 20. Her wedding dress was still being altered, so she wore a different one. He wore a suit instead of a tux. And the reception was champagne, wedding cake and Folk’s Folly takeout at her mother’s house.
How did Morgan say he would remember it? “Best. Day. Ever.”
“Each wedding is unique to what that couple wants. What was unique to both us from day one was showing up and saying ‘I do,’ “said Morgan, who with his wife still plans to celebrate in style with a “wedding-themed” anniversary party on March 20, 2021. “... We didn’t know what was going to happen in this world and where COVID-19 was going to take things, but we were excited to take it on together.”
The Morgans were among the few couples who chose to have an unconventional wedding in the wake of Memphis’ stay-at-home order, which went into effect March 17. During April, the first full month after governments throughout Shelby County went on lockdown, the county clerk’s office issued just 127 marriage licences, down 70% from the 428 licenses issued in April 2019. From March 1 through June 11, the clerk’s office recorded a 36% drop in licenses issued, from 1,543 in 2019 to 982 in 2020.
The coronavirus-driven shutdowns have crashed Memphis’ previously thriving wedding industry, hitting suppliers of perishable goods like caterers and florists especially hard.
“Most of us are basically living on a prayer until this fall,” said Kathleen Davenport, owner of Memphis wedding planning firm Pineapple Processions.
Wedding planners’ schedules are already filling up for the fall. Davenport said the number of weddings she was expecting in October has doubled from six to 12, and that she expected to be fully booked for 2021 by this November. She said she’s already over-hiring — and over-training — in preparation for a madcap fall wedding season.
“We’re at max capacity,” she said. “I’m probably going to be popping Xanax every day.”
But small businesses have only so much bandwidth, and many won’t be able to recoup their losses from the spring, said Elizabeth Hoard, the owner of Memphis-based Elizabeth Hoard Photography and a married mother of three young children. Like many people in the industry, she was expecting to have her best year ever — until COVID-19. She said she personally knows of small businesses that expect to lose about $30,000. “That’s, like, six months of their revenue, easily,” she said. “And because of COVID, that’s just wiped out. Gone.”
Kelsey Connor, owner of wedding planning firm Connor & Co., said another wave of COVID this fall could devastate an industry that’s already in “survival mode.” “You have to love being in the wedding industry to do this,” said Connor, who started her business in 2016 after her own wedding. “And I hope we can get back to doing what we love soon.” If COVID-19 leaves a lasting impression on the wedding industry, it might be that people start to focus less on the pageantry than the reason for the occasion, Hoard said. As a photographer, she said, she’s enjoying these more intimate and emotional moments.
“I think it brings it back to love,” she said of how the industry might change. “And I know that sounds cheesy. But it brings it back to what it should be about in the first place.”
Reach Ryan Poe at poe@commercialappeal.com and on Twitter @ryanpoe.