Pandemic marriages see a popularity boom

The wedding industry is booming with brides and grooms skipping the church aisle and getting hitched despite the lockdown regulations imposed the past few months.

Mathilde Tomson-Myburgh from Cape Town said she and her wife had to postpone their wedding twice, considered eloping, and then ended up getting married on the original date in lockdown.

“We got engaged in December 2017 but never set a date. Finally, in December 2019, we decided we wanted to get married in October 2020 and then the pandemic happened,” said Tomson-Myburgh adding that they then decided to put their wedding plans on ice until May.

“At this point, I wasn’t going to compromise on our wedding. We were either going to have our dream wedding or nothing.”

The couple then postponed the wedding until they went away to Wilderness at the end of September.

“While in Wilderness, a friend suggested we proceed with our plans of getting married on our original date. When we returned after the weekend we decided to proceed with the wedding which was two weeks away.”

Tomson-Myburgh said despite getting married at short notice, family and friends surprised them by joining them on their special day.

Nicole Rex from Roodepoort also recently tied the knot after postponing her wedding.

“We wanted to get married on 10 October, 2020 and planned to have a big wedding with more than 100 guests.”

Instead, they got married in December with a much smaller crowd than initially planned.

“It was weird wearing a mask and sanitising my hands on my wedding day, something I did not imagine for my big day,”

Rex said even though the plans changed, all the important people were present on the day.

Ilona Coetzer also had her dream wedding postponed due to the pandemic.

“We wanted to get married in September [2020] after getting engaged in December 2019… until corona happened.”

Coetzer said because a lot of the weddings were postponed and rescheduled, the new available dates are out of the desired season for the wedding.

“So, your spring wedding turns into a winter wedding.”

Coetzer said besides salary cuts, people were losing their jobs and they decided to postpone the wedding.

“There goes the wedding budget. Instead of planning or saving for the flowers, we were surviving now.”

Coetzer said another challenge was the 50 to 100 guest limits due to the lockdown restrictions.

“Our close family and their kids already make up nearly 50 guests with the pastor included.”

Pretoria-based wedding minister Pastor Petri Louw said the wedding business was booming.

“[Up to] 98% of the couples that inquire about getting married, do,” Louw said.

He said he gets marriage inquiries daily and marries 10 couples on average per month.

“A lot of couples are cancellingtheir venue weddings and gettinghitched in my office and have a party afterwards,” Louw said.

He said some couples stop at his gate, phone him up and get married on the spot.

“At the beginning of lockdown the weddings did dip but started picking up as the regulations were relaxed. To be honest, the wedding business is booming,” Louw added.

– marizkac@citizen.co.za

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.