Business Blog

By Leah Walker — Love may be in the air, with the confetti-throwing season in full swing, but this year’s wedding to-do’s may be a tier or two smaller in scale than last year’s. The recession is proving to be one big wedding crasher. Where once fountains gushed Veuve Clicquot champagne and centrepieces burst with exotic orchids, we’re now more likely to find bottles of sparkling Niagara wine and bouquets of garden-picked daisies. Wedding dresses, when something “new” can be crafted with fewer yards of satin and smaller buckets of beads. Those interested in “old,” “borrowed” or “blue” can turn to used bridal and bridesmaids’ gowns.

Because it takes so long to plan a wedding, the cutbacks will likely be even more apparent next year.  A study conducted by the Jewelry Consumer Opinion Council, a jewelry survey website, finds that 25 per cent of American couples who had planned to marry, have chosen to postpone their plans because of the recession. In June, due to plunging diamond demand, retailer Harry Winston, which also owns a chunk of the Diavik diamond mine in the Northwest Territories, reported a quarterly loss compared with a profit a year earlier. Its CEO, Robert Gannicott, commented that while since May there has been improvement, the company began the quarter “with a rough diamond market that could see no bottom and retail sales effectively stalled.” To Reuters, he described last year as “terrible.”

A spring survey by wedding website theknot.com found 40 per cent of brides have reduced their budgets, by an average of 16 per cent, and the site’s editor-in-chief predicts that as more couples start planning their big day, those figures will rise.

The economy can scale back the party, but it can’t stifle the love behind it. Our own newsroom newlywed, 680News film critic Leslie James, says that while most of their wedding planning was in place before recession worries really hit, he and his bride did quite a few things on their own to prepare for the big day, including invitations, reception gifts and decorations, and, he says, it was not only fun, but it brought them even closer together.

What was it some other guy once said? All you need is love? The Big Fat Wedding may not be gone for good, but this year, it has certainly slimmed down.