Wedding industry professionals holding out hope for June and July weddings
Michigan fashion designer Katerina Bocci is not planning to march on Lansing.
But she does have a few ideas on how to allow fashion designers — who have been hanging by a thread since the COVID-19 restrictions brought an end to weddings — to reopen their studios safely.
“We are not hearing anything,” Bocci said, referring to the wedding industry that includes fashion designers, halls, caterers, photographers and other businesses involved in making dreams come true. “When I design a dress it can take up to six months in advance. Now I might only have six days — but we will do what we need to do for our brides.”
The spring wedding season is already a bust.
Most brides who planned weddings for March, April and May either cancelled or postponed their dates. Others are crossing their fingers and hoping someone will come up with a plan for the weddings scheduled for June and even July.
“No one can stop life from happening,” Bocci said.
Many of the brides Bocci met prior to the coronavirus outbreak have planned their weddings around everything from new jobs and moving to military deployments and having children. Some of her brides who have found love later in life are even more anxious to see the problem resolved.
Bocci said if given the choice of no wedding or a small wedding most brides would scale their priorities down to: marrying the love of their life; wearing the dress of their dreams; and having their immediate family present for the happy occasion.
“For some brides just buying their dress is part of the experience,” said Bocci, adding she’s willing to do what ever it takes so that brides can proceed with their plans, safely.
“I will be tested if that means being able to meet with a bride,” Bocci said.
Banquet halls and caterers can also accommodate a wedding under restrictions.
“We’re mobile. So, we would have to come up with something that works for us and while we are trying to figure out ways to do it — we don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” said Vince Vettese, general manager of Soprano’s Catering in Roseville, which had 30 hall and backyard weddings booked before the COVID-19 crisis began.
Since then they have been adjust their business to handle the take-out and pickup going on in its stead.
“Right now we’re just doing what we can,” Vettese said, of the catering business celebrating its 20 year anniversary.
Of the 30 weddings he had booked for the spring and summer most were postponed. Among those that were cancelled was a military wedding as the groom was sent back to Germany.
If they were to try and open up weddings again Vettese said it would have to be family style rather than buffet but that’s easy to do.
“How to handle this dismal situation was the subject of a March 30 webinar featuring Wedding Industry Professional Association representatives from around the country who delved deep into the issues facing the industry. Topics included how to deal with clients (phone is better than email), force majeure clauses in contracts (read them carefully; they’re not uniform), and, of course, horror stories (a Utah country club canceled on the wedding day),” according to a report by Bloomberg. “Kevin Dennis, the WIPA president, several times mentioned the elephant in the room: “We don’t know when it’s going to end,” he said, “and that’s the biggest thing.”
Until it does Vettese and Bocci are doing what other professionals are doing until the lockdown is lifted on their industry — and that is coming up with ways to stay in business or helping the people they serve.
This past weekend, Soprano’s Catering cooked up curbside Mother’s Day dinners for families under quarantine.
Normally, they do not cook for smaller groups but these are special times.
The same goes for Bocci, who has been using the fabrics that she uses in her designs — which have graced the runways around the world including New York City’s Fashion Week — to make face masks being donated to hospitals and nonprofit organizations in need and to the public at cost.
“For every mask we sell, one mask is donated,” said Bocci, who donated thousands of face masks to hospital and nonprofit organizations before offering them to the public at cost.