As local weddings surge, venues and vendors deal with supply shortages

Postponed weddings from the past two years have led to a record number of weddings scheduled for this year, leaving wedding service providers to deal with supply chain challenges.

Gatehouse, a local wedding venue, is already mostly booked for the year, says owner Christi Kennedy Edwards, with spots booking much faster than normal.

Vendors have had issues getting certain food items like bread products, she says, and have dealt with a shortage of certain alcohols.

Magnolia Fields, a venue in Zachary, has experienced the same, says owner Skye Willis. The venue hosted 16 weddings last month compared to seven in January 2021. It’s been tough to get items like cake plates and cocktail napkins, she says, and she has had to work around shortages by ordering different colors in certain items.

An estimated 2.5 million weddings were postponed across the country over the past two years, meaning many wedding service providers are booked up under the crush of rescheduled events, The New York Times reports.

In order to deal with shortages, Gatehouse and the businesses it works with have spent time searching for comparable brands of food and alcohol, Edwards says.

Price hikes for items such as flowers have also made wedding planning more difficult, Willis says. It’s been hard to adjust, especially when weddings planned far in advance have been given a price, and it has to go up due to inflation.

This story originally appeared in a Feb. 24 issue of Daily Report. To keep up with Baton Rouge business and politics, subscribe to the free Daily Report e-newsletter here.