Montreal wedding industry experiencing a boom due to COVID postponements
Posted June 3, 2022 10:32 am.
Last Updated June 3, 2022 6:49 pm.
It’s going to be a hectic summer for Montreal’s wedding industry, after two years of couples postponing their big day because of COVID restrictions.
“The majority of my clients had postponed to 2021 and a part of them to 2022, so I could say at least last summer was very intense in a very short amount of time, this year as well,” says events planner Maya Fedida. “The vendors are feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything that’s going on.”
Fedida says it’s a balance between old contracts and new contracts that have come up for 2022 and 2023. It’s as though two years are now packed into one.
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“It’s a busy year for all of us and so we’re really just trying to catch up and get back into the groove of the normal times,” she said.
But the task of planning and re-planning weddings is not an easy one, but it is doable.
“The amount of weddings I planned last year within a two-week span, I can’t even count,” Fedida said.
And this year, the expenses are higher when it comes to food and the workforce isn’t stimulated.
“The word hectic would describe really what we’re experiencing right now. You need to look at the fact that we’ve been kind of dormant for almost two years and there’s not really been, you know, a delay that we have to kind of pick a business at from zero to like 100 miles an hour overnight,” explained Bobby Gentile, President of Gentile Venues and Catering. “We have had some calls from customers who were booked at other places that kind of did not make it through the pandemic. And so the customers were left without a venue, and we were able to help them out.
“For my clients, we’re facing, you know, a bit more of an increase in prices, so that’s something that we’re also trying to kind of workaround,” Fedida said. “I see the labour shortages in the service industry, whether it be my AV companies, my rental companies, it’s just part of a post-pandemic consequence.”
Over at wedding dress store Galleria Della Sposa in Little Italy, demand for dresses is skyrocketing and many of these bridal gowns are flying off the racks.
“We’ve been here over 15 years. And this is the first year I’ve seen anything like this,” explained Josie Brescia, Owner, Galleria Della Sposa.
A backlog of brides means the store is busy playing catch up and trying to keep up with new brides.
“We have a lot of last-minute brides. They’re coming in, getting married in a month or two. And so we’ve even had to change the way we buy for the store because they’re buying off the rack. And so we need a variety of sizes and looks for people who are getting married last minute. But, uh, it’s, it’s beautiful to see.”
But the pressure to deliver on so many dresses is mounting.
“It’s difficult for alterations process because we only have so many seamstresses. And so we’ve been hustling. Hustling. There are very long days right now for us and our seamstresses, and it’s been hard juggling everything around,” added Brescia.
Now it’s about managing the bride and groom’s expectations.
“We’re just kind of trying to adapt and troubleshoot all throughout the consequences of the pandemic,” Fedida said. “We also have to really adjust our client expectations based on what we can actually get them.”
But despite the challenges and the bustling summer ahead, Fedida remains positive.
“I’m just trying to take one event at a time, make sure that I perfected it, that it’s well done and that the clients are happy and then move on to the next.”
