Hoteliers celebrate bumper wedding season amid staffing and supply chain challenges

Hoteliers are in line for a bumper wedding season as couples rush to exchange vows in front of friends and family after two years of intermittent lockdowns, with some venues reporting a 70% increase on pre-pandemic booking levels.

 

Hospitality operators told The Caterer that they welcome the surge in business, although issues in staffing and supply chains are presenting challenges.

 

Peter Walker, managing director of Maryculter House in Aberdeen, is celebrating ahead of an “exceptional” year that will see his hotel host 100 weddings.

 

Meanwhile, Alison Wilson, owner of Balmer Lawn Hotel in the New Forest, said that she and her wedding coordinator Ruth Mundy were also experiencing a “bumper year”, with 88 weddings booked at the venue, compared to 50 in a normal year.

 

A survey from hospitality job board Caterer.com revealed that one in four people are attending up to three weddings in 2022, with 40% of respondents saying they have been invited to more weddings this year than ever before. Data from Caterer.com also showed a 432% increase in the advertising wedding-related jobs in Q1 this year, in comparison to Q1 2021.

 

Wilson added: “The biggest challenge is staffing up to meet the extra demand. We have strengthened our food and drinks team by three full-time members and uplifted our part-time team by about 25%. In the present climate, it’s not an easy task to recruit people, but we’ve worked really hard to ensure the best package for them.”

 

Daniel Thompson, general manager at Mullion Cove Hotel in Cornwall, which can host weddings for 120 people, said he received five enquiries this month for ‘exclusive use’ weddings due to take place later this year.

 

He added: “We’ve just had an offer for four-day exclusive use, so I think the market is there for big weddings and people wanting to just splash out and make things as exciting as possible.”

 

By contrast, James McComas, general manager at Champneys Eastwell Manor in Kent, said that compared to last year, which saw a “record-breaking” 86 weddings over six operating months, numbers are “not quite up to where we were”.

 

But McComas did add that he had seen “about a 15% increase on the revenue spend” because “people are much more willing to spend on a nicer wine or the additional course”.

 

He added: “The behaviour pattern is definitely changing while the surge may not always be in sheer numbers [of weddings].”

 

Ronan Hunter, general manager at the Castle Hotel in Somerset, has tried to pre-empt this surge on both fronts.

 

He said: “We’re not a wedding-led venue, but it is a growth market for us. In fact, we invested a little bit in refurbishing our events spaces in January this year. We’ve got couples who have had maybe two or three changes to their plans and were considering doing things on a slightly smaller scale but have decided to go with larger numbers.”

 

His challenge now is flexibility: “You create your menus in advance for weddings, but at the minute, supply chains are not as reliable as they once were. For a 90th birthday, which was also a wedding, we had ordered turbot and we couldn’t get turbot for love nor money.”

 

Contrary to talk of the rise in pub weddings – with Caterer.com reporting 1.8m planned – Sam Bakose, owner of the Halfway Bridge pub with rooms in West Sussex said that for his venue, “It’s very rare – you might get one a year. Last year, when lockdown was lifted, we did about three. This year is back to normal and we had nothing.”