You've gotten engaged, and are planning for a 2022 wedding. First of all, congrats! 🎉 Second of all, I get it. The pandemic has taught us that nothing is secure, and so planning for 2022 makes a lot of sense. And, since you are planning a wedding for 2022, you can just sit back and relax now, right?
Nope.
I want to give you some kind guidance to start securing your vendors NOW. Here's why:
Hopefully, 2022 will be our first full and "normal" wedding season after the pandemic. However, for vendors, it is likely that the 2022 wedding season will be more packed than a traditional pre-pandemic wedding season. There are a few reasons why this may be likely to happen...
1. 2021 couples are already beginning to move to 2022 because they just don't want to try to plan around the potential future unknowns. Since these couples are already contracted, vendors will do their best to accommodate these rescheduling requests. These individuals will likely take up the first slots available on any vendor's 2022 schedule. The sooner you reach out to your dream vendors, the less you have to compete with other couples' rescheduling requests.
2. Just like you're planning for a 2022 wedding to hopefully skip right on over the pandemic during your planning, so are 78634819 other couples. This now becomes a process of first come, first served. And, sometimes, first deposited, first served. The sooner you reach out to your dream vendors, the less you have to race to send in that first retainer payment.
3. Since 2020 was a crapshoot for most wedding vendors, and 2021 has the potential to be the same if a COVID-19 vaccine is not in wide production and distribution by the time the wedding season begins, many vendors will feel the need to stack the 2022 wedding season. This means that vendors will be taking on extra work to make up for their loss of income for 2020 and (perhaps) 2021 - whether it's taking on more weddings than usual, committing to a second stream of income, participating in events that they wouldn't normally specialize in, etc. And, they will want to book and secure this extra work as soon as possible so that they know they have paychecks coming in to sustain their livelihood. The sooner you reach out to your dream vendors, the less you're needing to compete with their other income-focused commitments.
This post is more blunt than I usually write, and a lot of it is based on dollar signs. Which sucks. I know. No one wants to feel like their wedding is a commodity. And, truthfully, it's not. Your wedding is beautiful and important and meaningful and impactful. And most of us wedding vendors feel honored to be there. But, the basic bottom line of being in business is that monetary profits need to be had in order to be in operation. And so if you have a dream vendor you are wanting to work with for your wedding, book them now so they will actually BE in operation later.
Yes, even (and especially) for 2022.
