Jen Trizzino is a woman who knows what she wants, and the bride-to-be has always wanted an Italian wedding.

After her fiancé Nick Weatherhead proposed, she had her eyes set on having their ceremony on the Amalfi Coast. When he agreed to her dream wedding, after looking at over 35 venues in the New York metro area, Trizzino spent a year and a half planning every detail. She knows the nooks and crannies of Hotel Santa Caterina, where they will have their reception. She knows there are 72 steps to the top of the Amalfi Duomo, where they'll have their ceremony. 

"I'm going to sound like a crazy person, but I know this because we counted it," she admitted.

Trizzino began to worry, though, when she started to see the economic effect coronavirus was having on her business early this year. She was running into packaging delays for her CBD pet line ZenPup. Chinese factories told her they would be shut down for a couple of weeks but then eventually stayed closed. Similar things started happening with her suppliers in Italy. She and Weatherhead tried to stay positive.

Trizzino was at her mother's house when the news finally broke that travel to Europe was banned. She remembers falling to the ground and sobbing. 

"It was honestly like the worst moment of my life, not to be dramatic or anything," she said of having to postpone her May 2020 wedding for the first time. "You don't want to cancel or move your wedding if it's going to be okay. So it's more the uncertainty of not knowing if it's going to pass, or it's going to continue. And, eventually what ended up happening is the airlines canceled everyone's flights, and the decision was made for us." While love still has persisted throughout the coronavirus pandemic, weddings have been put on pause. Before the pandemic, the industry was worth almost $74 billion dollars, according to research firm IBISWorld. Because of the coronavirus closures and guidelines against large gatherings, it is expected to decline 21 percent this year. 

Events are being reimagined as smaller ceremonies or postponed to a later date, like in the case of Trizzino and Weatherhead's nuptials. A LendingTree survey showed that 63 percent of couples delayed their 2020 weddings, while another 8 percent opted to elope or go to the courthouse. 

"We're in our 30s. We're not the youngest people in the world. We would like to have children," said Trizzino. "It's like kind of a domino effect, where you're like,  'It'll be okay. I'm going to hold on hope' and then you realize that it's not okay." 

These delays are affecting more than the couples, however. Wedding industry vendors are also in a wait-and-see mode. 

"It's devastating," said Loeb Central Park Boathouse banquet director Peter Bischoff. "One doesn't realize how many people are involved in a wedding: the florist, the photographers, the invitation people, the bands, the rental companies, the linen companies." 

While some local jurisdictions have allowed small gatherings, venues like Bischoff's, which is in the heart of New York's Central Park, worry about keeping family members and friends socially distanced at an event under their watch. 

"These people haven't seen one another, gosh, for some it could be years [since] they've seen relatives or friends," he pointed out. "It would be a real challenge to keep these people separated."

The Boathouse usually hosts 125 weddings a year. Since COVID-19 came to town, he's had to tell brides they've been rescheduled. When he started realizing the shutdown might persist, he began saving every bride's 2020 wedding date for the next year. Then, he called each couple and broke the news. 

"They had a lot of questions, and at the same time we didn't have all the answers," he admitted. "We only knew what we were listening to on the news and so forth. But we were very patient; they were very understanding." 

About 90 percent of the couples decided to go forward with a celebration next year, he said. A handful decided to cancel completely because most of their guests were international, and rules about overseas travel are still murky. Some brides wanted to start families, so they decided to forgo a big celebration and get married this year. Everyone who decided not to go forward got a full refund.  

Postponing the dates blocked two years of business for the Boathouse, since no weddings were happening in 2020 and no new events could be scheduled in 2021 for the most part. 

Moving the entire wedding and then breaking the news to the bride is also the tactic Weatherhead took. He came to grips with the reality that their Italian wedding was probably not going to happen in 2020 before Trizzino did. Weatherhead, who was looking forward to getting to "wear amazing outfits and party with my best friend and get married in Italy," was also crushed that he would have to postpone the Dubai and Maldives honeymoon. 

"Besides actually saying, 'I do' and marrying my best friend, riding camels and Ferraris in Dubai is probably high up on that list of things I was bummed about," he said. 

To keep his bride-to-be happy, Weatherhead talked privately with Trizzino's mother, and the duo got to work pushing the wedding back while keeping all of the elements the same. When the cancellation news officially came in, the wedding had already been rescheduled to October. 

"I, just in case, wanted to have everything squared away so if we did have to go to Jen, she wasn't going to punch me in my face and say, 'Hey, no, we need to replan all of this stuff,'" Weatherhead said. "'No, it's actually all done!' So I was trying to be a good soon-to-be-husband."

Having a contingency plan before you become the bearer of bad news is also what boutique Kleinfeld Bridal CEO Ronnie Rothstein has learned throughout the years. His store had over 8,000 orders for gowns already set for 2020, many of which were awaiting alterations. They had to call each bride and talk her through the changes. 

"Our job was to keep everybody calm," he explained. "If you have a calm bride and a calm mother and a calm mother-in-law and a calm fiancé, life is good."

About 99 percent of their 2020 brides decided to postpone their weddings, Rothstein said. But the remainder had extenuating circumstances that made them decide to keep their wedding dates, like a sick family member. Kleinfeld helped facilitate getting those brides their gowns with alterations during the pandemic.

Kleinfeld reopened June 25, but it's now a socially-distanced experience. There are temperature checks and plexiglass dividers. Consultants are assigned to one pedestal and one fitting room. Dresses are heavily sanitized between fittings. 

Also, brides, who used to have an entire group of friends and family members to help them pick a dress, can now only bring two people to accompany them. It's actually better this way, said Kleinfeld director of merchandising Dorothy Silver.

"When you have a whole entourage you can never make a decision," she said. "Everybody has, you know, a different opinion." 

While weddings may be downscaling this year, brides aren't skimping on their dresses. The average bride spent about $3,500 on her dress before the pandemic at Kleinfeld. Now she's spending $5,000 on each dress. Many are getting one for a simple ceremony now, and a grand one for their big celebration to come. Plus, the number of brides who show up for an appointment and actually buy a dress is up.

"We thought, oh, you know, with what's going on people are not going to want to buy dresses or spend a lot of money on their weddings," Silver said. "And I'm finding that to be quite the opposite."

However, with 50 percent capacity rules, it means fewer appointments overall. Also half of the company's business used to come from out-of-state. Now, with New York's strict quarantine rules, many brides are opting not to travel to their store. Kleinfeld is testing a virtual appointment system, which could allow brides a plane ride away to try on gowns from the comfort of their own home. 

Rothstein is confident the ceremonies will happen again one day. 

"The celebrations will be the same," he said. "What we can't answer is: when?"

Trizzino and Weatherhead are waiting patiently. They've changed their wedding date twice, and now their fingers are crossed that they'll be able to have their big celebration next May. Friends have supported them, from sending popular Italian Aperol Spritz cocktails to just being willing to listen. That's what's helped the most, Trizzino said.

"As the pandemic progressed you almost feel silly about being upset about it, because I still have a job," she explained. "He still has a job. All our family members and our friends are healthy. This is, for the most part, not having a major impact in anything super serious in our life. So if the worst thing that's happening to us right now is that our wedding is getting pushed out, then we're probably better off than the vast majority of the people in the world." 

Weatherhead is still holding out hope for his dream of riding a Ferrari and a camel in the desert as well. But he's happy to be in New York with Trizzino. 

"Every day we still pinch ourselves saying how fortunate we are, how fortunate that our friends and family are okay — and that we're able to still have that bachelor party," which was held in February, he said.

There's only one thing he would have changed. 

"I would have proposed earlier," Weatherhead said. "I would have made this thing official a lot quicker than I did."

Share:
More In
No more stories