With COVID in rearview, NJ wedding industry expects to be booming this spring

After Kaelyn and Matt Desimone of Wood-Ridge got engaged in December 2021, one immediate thought came to mind: how to plan a wedding amid a pandemic and lingering COVID fears.

Sure, by then there was a vaccine, but the omicron variant was a threat. Public dialogue centered around remasking, vaccine mandates and booster shots.

They considered asking wedding guests to come vaccinated, but didn't in the end. “We kind of trusted that everyone would think of everyone else if they were coming, and not come if they were sick,” Kaelyn said.

Story continues after photo gallery.

By the time of their wedding day in May 2023, fears about such in-person events had long ago subsided. The couple married at The Rockleigh, with a crowd of over 200 guests.

“We spent most of the night on the dance floor, which was great,” Kaelyn said.

Across New Jersey, wedding industry insiders say the industry has largely rebounded from the pandemic after years of state-mandated business shutdowns, restrictions on public gatherings and overall anxiety about public health.

The expectation is that the 2024 wedding season — which generally runs from May to October every year — will be booming.

“Things are back to the way they were before COVID,” said Jeanne Cretella, president of Landmark Hospitality, which owns 13 wedding venues across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, including Felina in Ridgewood, Village Hall in South Orange, and the Hudson House, The View and Liberty House, all in Jersey City.

“I think the wedding season and the mentality about when people can plan and enjoy weddings has actually changed since COVID for the better,” Cretella said.

In 2022, weddings finally returned to their pre-pandemic levels, according to data released this March by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The figures showed that there were nearly 2.1 million weddings nationwide in 2022, higher than the roughly 2 million seen in 2019.

That came after years of the COVID-19 pandemic, which included business shutdowns and restrictions on social gatherings, followed by fears over ensuing variants of the virus even after the advent of a vaccine.

In New Jersey, the state recorded 47,735 marriages in 2018 and 46,042 in 2019, before dropping to 38,334 marriages in 2020 during the pandemic, according to figures from the New Jersey Health Department.

The number rebounded to 47,236 in 2021, then hit more than 49,000 in both 2022 and 2023, department data showed.

“People are back to booking, and things are busy. I think the worry has calmed down,” said Aimee Peterson, a wedding planner with The Perfect Shindig, based in Wyckoff.

More intimate affairs

But what has changed?

Weddings have become smaller and more intimate, those in the industry say.

Many couples opt for a smaller wedding with the expectation of a larger event later in life, said Alex Perez, a wedding officiant who operates across New York City and North Jersey.

“It becomes a small, intimate ceremony with just immediate family and friends,” he said.

Peterson agreed. “I think that COVID inspired it a bit more," she said. "There’s that level of intimacy and sweetness and niceness that people recognize as a result.”

More hands-on, less traditional

Picture a wedding on a Tuesday. It didn’t typically happen before the pandemic, Cretella said.

Now it has become commonplace: weddings on the weekdays.

“There’s only so many Saturdays, so your photographer, your florist, your music, everyone is much more flexible on those non-traditional days,” she said.

Couples have also become more hands-on with their weddings, getting involved with details they typically wouldn’t have dealt with previously, Cretella added. Wedding décor, the chocolates and social media information all see more involvement from couples now.

Costlier weddings

The cost of saying “I do” has skyrocketed since the pandemic.

An average wedding in the U.S. this year costs $33,000, up from $29,000 in 2023, according to wedding planning site Zola. In New Jersey, it's over $45,000 this year.

Prices for typical wedding services have all gone up over the past year — from the wedding planner to the venue, photographer, hair and makeup, cake, band or DJ and catering, the Wedding Report said.

What's more, 40% of guests at weddings in the past year have gone into debt to attend, a survey by LendingTree showed.

"With the majority of Americans saying weddings are getting too expensive, many guests are feeling the pressure to shell out for someone else’s big day (or days)," the report reads.

The Knot, a wedding planning publication, said the climbing costs of weddings have been driven by "inflation and the overall U.S. economic landscape over the past couple of years."

The February 2024 report found that 61% of couples surveyed felt the same way — that inflation affected their wedding planning and budget in the prior year.

Two-thirds of couples had to increase their budget, over half had to become more selective with upgrades and add-ons, and 40% opted to trim their guest list.

COVID is still here

It's not uncommon for some key member of the wedding party to come down with COVID-19, said Gary Flom, a wedding photographer in Wayne.

"I had situations where a family member was not present because they had COVID, or somebody in the bridal party," he said.

In 2022, one wedding couple had a cardboard cutout stand in for the groom after he tested positive for COVID, Insider reported.

Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy for NorthJersey.com and The Record. 

Email: munozd@northjersey.com; Twitter:@danielmunoz100

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ wedding industry expects to be booming this spring