WEDDING BLOG

5 Ways to Support Small Businesses in the Wedding Industry During COVID-19

March 25, 2020 | Junebug Weddings

It’s no secret that people across the world are experiencing fear and insecurity due to COVID-19. From social distancing to shuttered businesses, life looks completely different than it did even a few weeks ago. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or afraid, you’re not alone.

Here in the wedding industry, we’re experiencing our own unique struggles. Couples are making tough decisions to reschedule or postpone their weddings, many feeling too uncertain in what the future may bring to set a new date. On the other side of the “aisle,” with gatherings of 10+ people being the basis of their income, wedding vendors all around the world are experiencing a major loss in cash flow and their livelihoods are on the line. Being an independent business owner comes with its ups and downs, but this situation is beyond what any indie biz could have prepared for.

Whether you’re planning a wedding and have already booked your vendors or you just want to support the community, we’ve got a few ways you can help out small businesses in the wedding industry during this vulnerable time.

1. Review your vendors + share their work

Already married? This is an easy one for you to do! Wedding professionals are using this time to ramp up marketing efforts and one of the most reliable sources of bookings is word-of-mouth referrals! Leaving a review for your favorite wedding vendors is a simple step you can take that makes a big difference in a professional’s booking potential. In addition to writing testimonials, you can help your vendors by sharing photos of their work from your wedding (or engagement session!) on your social media and making sure to tag them.

P.S. Is your wedding vendor listed in the Junebug vendor directory? You can now leave them a review to share about your experience!

photo by VinylRae Photography

2. Order photo prints and albums from your photographer

Another easy way to help if you’ve already gotten married! Raise your hand if you received your wedding photos and meant to order prints or wedding albums and…never got around to it. Well, with all this spare time you’ve got just hanging around at home, now is a great time to choose your favorite wedding images to hang on your walls or to fill up your wedding album. In addition to sending some extra income to your photographer, you’re giving yourself the gift of reliving your happy day all over again. It’s a win-win!

Don’t have wedding photos yet? Lots of wedding photographers are selling prints of travel photos that would be perfect to hang in your living room, office, or bedroom!

photo by Flowermouth Photography

3. Purchase floral arrangements for your home (or others!)

Being stuck in your house for the foreseeable future isn’t super fun, but having fresh flowers at home certainly is! Support the florist you obsess over on Instagram (or the one you already hired for your wedding) by purchasing bouquets to display around your house. Missing your best buds? Have flowers delivered to friends near or far to brighten their day during this stressful period!

Find wedding florists near you!

photo by Map + Compass Photography, floral design by Wildly Cultivated Floral Design

4. Get meals for pick-up or delivery from caterers

If the goods from your last grocery run are running low or looking less than exciting, boy do we have a solution for you! Lots of caterers are putting their commercial-size kitchens to use and creating meals for pick-up or delivery. Just because you’re in quarantine doesn’t mean you should be subjected to boring food, so check out your favorite caterer’s website and social media to see if they’re offering meals to go. The same goes for cake bakeries; indulge your sweet tooth and order a mini cake for two!

Find wedding caterers near you!

photo by Map + Compass Photography, event design by The Social Planner, catering by Tim the Girl

5. If you can, offer to pay your vendors on schedule even if your wedding was postponed

This last tip is for those of you currently planning weddings that were meant to take place during the COVID-19 outbreak, and yes it’s a bit of a plea from us in the wedding industry, so bear with us. Just like you plan your bills and groceries around your monthly or bi-weekly paychecks, wedding vendors and other freelance artists budget their life around the payment schedules of their clients. With postponed wedding dates, those delayed payments could have a huge negative impact on a professional’s ability to make it through the next few months — and even the next year and beyond.

If you are moving forward with a vendor’s services for a future date and you’re able to continue making payments on the original schedule, you would absolutely have a hand in saving their business. Scary is an understatement when it comes to describing how small business owners are feeling during these uncertain times and your support could mean financial security for the future.

Not sure yet if you need to postpone your wedding? Feeling overwhelmed by contacting your vendors to find out? Check out our tips for wedding planning during COVID-19 to ease your stress and find out more about communicating with your wedding vendors during coronavirus!

photo by Catalina Jean Photography

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COVID-19

Black and White Tropical Wedding at The Belmont in Austin, TX

March 23, 2020 | Junebug Weddings

Give us all the fun-loving, ultra stylish vibes! We’re swooning over Michael and Eric’s black and white tropical wedding at The Belmont in Austin, Texas. From the looks of the awesome photos by Nikk Nguyen Photo, we’re wishing we were there to parade through the streets of Austin with this crew and their custom tambourines! If non-traditional wedding party outfits are your thing, you’re going to love this stylish crew who all wore the most fabulous wedding day suits. Get ready for lots of lush, green arrangements by Burlap & Rose and all the modern, black and white tropical wedding inspiration you could ever dream of.

The Couple:

Michael & Eric

The Wedding:

The Belmont, Austin, Texas

Nikk was one of the first vendors that we secured, and boy, what a start to planning a wedding. Even before meeting him in person, we loved his laid-back, fun vibe and his vision of capturing authentic moments with such style. Those qualities shinned even brighter on the day of the wedding, and translated into an incredible product.

Knowing that The Belmont, our venue, already embodied a retro west coast vibe, filled with tropical plants and a sweet outdoor stage for bands, we wanted to really let that be the focus and built our style off of that. We mostly incorporated a black-and-white color scheme with our wedding party outfits and overall decor with hints of yellow and packed with an assortment of greenery all around the venue. That, and we had to top it off with a lot of camp because our marriage is built on always having spare wigs, sequin blazers, and feathered boas on hand.

We encouraged all of our guests to hit the bar, grab a drink, and watch the band perform before the start of everything. Then, with everyone huddled around, we got to stand alongside Eric‘s sister, Kerry, who officiated our wedding, and she knocked it out of the park. Kerry cultivated an incredibly thoughtful ceremony composed of precious memories and well-executed jokes. The two of us wrote and shared our own vows, and then, we let the band take it from there, as we danced down the aisle. Oh – and not to mention that we got married in the exact spot that we met nine years prior! It was the perfect balance of love, appreciation, and fun, for us.

Wedding planning advice from the couple: Be decisive; so much time can go by weighing various options (and there are a lot of options about a lot of different things!) so try to go with your gut and love your choice. Then, you can spend that otherwise lost time enjoying all of the moments of being engaged and planning a wedding. Interspersing plenty of wine dates is also crucial! And, try your hardest to laugh at the situations that can cause so much stress. There really is humor in many of those times if you can just let yourself step back and see it.

We wanted to bend the norms and have everybody wear suits regardless of gender, which was especially fun because most of our wedding party was composed of our close girl friends. They rocked a heigh-waisted, cropped pant suit, with an all-black stiletto to match. Some of the girls also wore black skinny ties, while others kept their white button-up open and accessorized with gold jewelry. Our groomsman wore a classic black suit, and we both wore black tuxedos. One of Eric‘s groomswomen, Bridget Galant, also customized perfectly gaudy “BITCH” earrings and a tie clip to adorn our favorite people. Our florist, Jen Clary, made incredible bouquets, stacked with Monstera deliciosa leaves, and put together boutonnières for the two of us, each with Billy Bolls.

We were fortune to have an event coordinator, Jen Clary at Burlap and Rose, support us with event planning (and therapy!) in the months leading up to the wedding. Her contagiously enthusiastic and empathetic temperament, alongside her excellent planning skills, made for a purely enjoyable wedding day. In addition to Jen, one of the best decisions that we ever made was to hire ILC Films to video our wedding. RuPaul says it best – 10s across the board. They made an aesthetically beautiful video that captured all the feels of the day. We watched the video daily for at least a solid month after the wedding (and right before we started to prepare these answers!).

In addition to providing wigs and feathered boas for all, we made personalized tambourines. They were wooden tambourines with sheep-skin drums, and Eric, I, and some of our friends spent hours one Saturday spray painting a personalized logo that Eric designed onto them.

The Wedding Team:

Photography – Nikk Nguyen Photo
Event Planning & Floral Design – Burlap & Rose
Wedding Venue – The Belmont
Catering – Maudie’s Tex-Mex Catering
Cake – Sugar Mama’s Bakeshop
Live Music – Royal Dukes Band
Videography – ILC Films
Invitation Designer – Vanessa Herbert
Wedding Apparel – The Black Tux
Custom Jewelry and Accessories – Bridget Gallant
Rings – Greenwich Street Jewelers
Rentals – Premier Rentals

Congratulations, Michael and Eric, and many thanks to Nikk for sharing their black and white tropical wedding with Junebug! Loving these photos? See more of Nikk’s work in our directory of the world’s best wedding photographers.

Rustic Minimalist Oklahoma City Wedding at Stone Barn at Blueberry Hill

March 22, 2020 | Junebug Weddings

aqua ivory white

Mallory and Bret always knew they wanted an outdoorsy wedding with minimal decor, so when they bound the Stone Barn at Blueberry Hill they knew it was a perfect fit! The couple hired Borrowed Charm to help them pull off a rustic vibe that wouldn’t take away from the lush beauty of the venue — and they totally pulled it off with long, farmhouse style tables and a cozy lounge area with boho touches. If sweet, classic florals are your thing, you’re going to love what Rootstock Floral created for this couple’s day. We’re obsessed with Mallory’s bouquet and overall minimalist bridal style! So, go ahead! Scroll on and see all the magic captured by Living Roots Photography!

The Couple:

Mallory & Bret

The Wedding:

Stone Barn at Blueberry Hill, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

I always knew that I wanted something timeless for my dress and overall look. I didn’t want to feel like a princess; I wanted to feel like myself. When I started searching, it seemed like a lot of French designers fit the bill of what I was looking for: minimal and chic. I live in New York and luckily enough, had a plethora of places to seek out these designers. I knew the second I had the dress on that it was the one. I loved the unusual pattern of the lace and the subtle pearl button detail down the back. Again, for my hair I wanted something that still felt like me. I loved the idea of having loose curls with an interesting hairpiece. Little did I know, the designer I bought my dress from also carried really unique hairpieces. It was so hard to choose just one!

The most memorable part of the day was definitely the ceremony itself. The venue had a secret garden area where the ceremony was held. Everyone had to walk down a tree covered path lit with fairy lights to enter the space. One of our friends officiated the wedding, we had more friends who sang the processional/recessional and it all felt so personal and authentic. We both loved the vows we wrote to each other and it was amazing being able to share that with our families and closest friends.

We always knew we wanted our wedding to be outdoors and wanted to pick a venue that could really speak for itself. I’m kind of a minimalist and didn’t want to do a ton of decorating, so when we found the beautiful Stone Barn at Blueberry Hill we knew it was the perfect fit! The abundance of trees and the charming barn felt very “us.” After that, everything fell into place. Our planner also owns a rental business and to say she knew what we were going for is an absolute understatement! Every piece she suggested paired perfectly with our intimate and understated vibe. Overall, we could not have been happier with the way everything turned out.