The coronavirus may be all but non-existent on the Sunshine Coast but it is still proving to be a major hitch when it comes to having a dream wedding.
Gun-shy couples remain too cautious about the uncertainty of sudden border closures, snap lockdowns and restrictions on guest numbers and dancing to set the date.
The local wedding industry, which injects $55 million a year into the Coast’s economy according to information provided to the State Government in 2020, says the rebound they had hoped for has not eventuated in 2021 and it may take longer for big bookings to start flowing in.
Cloud Nine wedding planner Julie-Ann Brown said 2021 was shaping up as the “year of transfers” of weddings that had been held over from the chaos of 2020.
“Anyone who was planning a wedding for 2021 has pushed it to 2022 and this year will just be the transfers,” Ms Brown said.
“Couples are very cautious, even though we have not had a big outbreak and there is the vaccine, they are waiting to see and their confidence level is growing but still cautious.
“Hopefully in 2022 normality will set back in like it did after the GFC; it did bounce back. It’s a resilient industry.”
Ms Brown is the founder of the Sunshine Coast Bridal Showcase which promotes local suppliers. It was held in February and drew more than 500 brides.
She said the Sunshine Coast was a wedding destination and hosted nearly 10 per cent of Queensland’s weddings.
But the uncertainty created by COVID restrictions was having a lingering effect.
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Photographer Lou O’Brien said the impact on the industry was “quite huge”, with as many as 12 local suppliers – from venues to DJs, florists, cakemakers and party hire companies -hit by the cancellation of one big wedding.
“I know a lot of cakemakers for example who are not doing it because to be feasible it has to be the big cakes,” she said.
“They can still do small weddings but it doesn’t mean suppliers will survive because they need the big weddings.”
Mrs O’ Brien said usually about 80 per cent of her bookings were couples who lived elsewhere and chose the Sunshine Coast has their wedding destination.
“Normally they would come here and turn it into a wedding and honeymoon or weekend with family and friends,” she said.
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“But with the uncertainty of border closures we just had everyone cancel.
“The Sunshine Coast also has a growing population of interstaters so couples are gun-shy of planning if their family and friends can’t come here.”
Mrs O’Brien called on people to support the local wedding industry and appreciate the professionalism of businesses that had stuck it out.
To stay afloat during the pandemic, Mrs O’Brien had to “pivot” and began taking portraits and family photos which she has been enjoying.
She predicted 2021 would be a year of small and intimate weddings and elopements, probably until at least after the coronavirus vaccine has been rolled out nationally.
Ms Brown said elopements were a trend to emerge from the pandemic to avoid headaches and financial loss but they were not great for the industry.
She said some couples would probably never have their dream wedding after opting instead to buy a house and start a family.
“They’re just changing the order of what they do but will they end up doing that big wedding?”
Newlyweds Stephanie and Marc Fisher had to twice reschedule their wedding which was originally booked for May 2020, just after Australia went into lockdown.
The couple, who live in Townsville, had booked their wedding on the Sunshine Coast because it was Stephanie’s home town.
The May date was switched to September but the venue they had booked opted not to re-open until October, leaving them in the lurch.
Unable to find any venues to accommodate the late change, the couple rescheduled again to December after securing a date at The Lakehouse in Brightwater which Mrs Fisher said was “absolutely beautiful”.
“We were able to have 80 guests and the restrictions were lifted so we could have dancing,” Mrs Fisher said.
“As far as weddings go it was pretty normal although we had to get contact tracing details, but other than that it felt like a normal wedding.
“We had the ceremony at AnnaBella The Wedding Chapel and we had a reception with stand-up canapes and sit-down meals.”
Mrs Fisher said planning a wedding was stressful enough without the added pressure of the pandemic which took it to “another level”.
For example, if they had chosen to go ahead during tighter restrictions, they would have had to social distance in wedding photos.
“Up until our wedding in December we did not know what we would end up with,” she said.
“But we decided we would go through with it anyway.”
