'Please pick me': Calgary couples, businesses feeling 2022 wedding boom

When Calgarian Cherie Novecosky and her fiancé got engaged at the end of last year, she sprung into action. 

"You can't wait nowadays because of the boom of the wedding season. Everyone's delayed because of COVID," she said.

Novecosky and her fiancé Tony Nelicchio started planning "immediately" to secure their ideal date and venue, because things were booking up quickly, Novecosky said. 

"I feel like as a bride right now I have to basically present myself to these vendors and be like, 'please pick me'… because of this boom, they get to pick who they want as their clients."  

Couples, bridal shops and event venues are feeling the pressure of a surge of weddings after two years of cancellations related to the pandemic. 

Fortunately, Novecosky managed to secure a venue in 2023. 

"You really have to plan so far forward that it almost kind of takes away from the joy of it. Like, I wanted to take a little bit more time enjoying my engagement, when all of a sudden it was like you don't get to enjoy that right off the bat," she said.  

But when events like the engagement party and the big day come, it'll all be worth it, she said. 

At a Calgary bridal consignment shop near Victoria Park, dresses are flying off the shelves. 

Lucas Scott, senior bridal consultant and salon manager at Everthine Bridal Consignment Boutique, said due to a limited number of weddings in the past two years, they have not been getting the same volume of dresses to resell. 

"Historically, we see a lot of our collection come in September to mid-October, when all the summer weddings are done…We usually see about 40ish dresses in that time. And I've seen about 40 in the last eight months," he said.  

Low inventory, coupled with a sudden increase in demand, is "incredibly unnerving," said Scott.

"It's insane the number of weddings that are going to be happening this year. " 

He said many brides are coming in with smaller budgets, having delayed their wedding for a second or third time due to the pandemic, and the dresses they bought in 2019 and 2020 aren't wanted anymore.