After the pandemic nearly shut down the industry, wedding vendors play catch-up

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – “We’re in a wedding boom, and so there’s a lot of people getting married, and it’s a little more challenging to find resources, vendors, because there’s only so many dates available,” said Matthew Trettel, the Wedding Guy, Sunday.

At Sunday’s “Unveiled Rochester, there was much discussion about a ‘wedding boom’ that is taking place. According to local vendors, this “boom” is in plain sight.

“The more people that are starting to have weddings, all these venues, photographers, cake decorators, DJs, they’re all gonna be full,” said Shannon Norwood, the founder and owner of Sunflower Photography.

Norwood runs Sunflower based out of Zumbrota, and though she’s keeping busy, she’s still upset when she has to turn couples away.

“It’s the last thing that we want to do. People that have waited for so long to have a wedding, and they want to book with us, and then they call us and we’re already booked,” said Norwood. “It does become a problem for me personally because I want to be able to serve my community.”

Complete Weddings and Events owner Rob Murphy says since his company is bigger, they have been a little more lucky in finding time.

“We don’t need to turn people away at this point yet, which is good,” said Murphy. “It’s not necessarily easy for the little guys who are getting constantly bombarded with more requests, and they’re booked up already.”

One thing both viewed as a new trend: couples booking their special day years in advance.

“We’ve already taken some bookings for the fall of 2023 and I believe we have one in the books for 2024 already,” said Murphy.

“We’ve gotten a lot of phone calls for 2023,” said Norwood.

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