We started the year off full of excitement for the weddings and events to come in 2020. Never in a million years did we expect that a pandemic would drastically disrupt not just our lives but the lives of millions of others. On March 17th, Nevada’s governor, Governor Sisolak, issued stay-at-home orders until further notice. This meant our remaining weddings for the month needed to be postponed.
Since that date, we’ve had scores of couples postpone their weddings for later this year and some for 2021. We’ve even had couples who need to completely cancel their weddings. Our hearts go out to all the couples that have to plan a wedding during this pandemic. We can only imagine the frustration they may be feeling.
The weddings we originally had scheduled for March all the way through June have either been cancelled or rescheduled. Normally, this is when our wedding season starts to ramp-up with June being the busiest. Now our calendar is free, yet full of government restrictions on gatherings. With no income due to so many rescheduled events, we’ve turned to the federal government for aid in the form of a small business loan through the Paycheck Protection Program.
During this quarantine, we’ve spent many hours learning how to utilize the assistance the Small Business Association has offered to small businesses like ours. There’s so much uncertainty in the next few months. Will we be able to have a large gathering again? What constitutes a large gathering? Would a wedding be exempt from these gathering restrictions?
We’ve also spent time brainstorming on ways to pivot our business. Large gatherings don’t seem to be possible in the near future, so we are looking into ways to help our couples live-stream their weddings. By streaming the wedding, guests can still witness the nuptials but still be safe in the comfort of their home.
In early October, Governor Sisolak made a statewide update to allow larger gatherings of up to 250 people or 1/2 capacity, whichever is smaller. This has given new hope to our 2020 couples that are remaining in 2020 as well as to couples planning their wedding for 2021.
Our friends at KTVN Channel 2 have followed our journey during quarantine. They first interviewed our founder, Erik, in April right after the SBA started taking applications for the Paycheck Protection Program to discuss the impact of the pandemic on our business and the wedding industry in general. A month later, Channel 2 returned for another interview where we updated them on the status of the SBA loan and how we’ve pivoted to provide streaming of weddings.
As our communities slowly open, we are closely monitoring new information released by the CDC and government officials. We want to get back to helping couples live their stories and celebrating with their loved ones, but we want to do it safely. For now, we continue to offer our support to our couples during this unprecedented time as well as working with our vendor friends to help make all these date changes go as smoothly as possible.
We want to remind everyone that love is not cancelled. There are still many ways to celebrate your love where it’s an intimate elopement, a micro-wedding, or a large celebration in the future. After this is all over, everyone will be itching to get together and connect through love and music. Until then, we hope everyone is staying safe and strong, and we can’t wait ‘til we can celebrate again soon.
