Can you believe that 220,000 weddings in the UK had to be cancelled or postponed during the last 12 months as a result of the pandemic and three lockdowns? That’s an extraordinary number and the impact on the wedding industry has been huge.
Lambeth Town Hall has 11 different spaces for weddings.
When smaller weddings have gone ahead, have you noticed a difference in what the bridal parties have been wearing?
The majority of our brides are quite low key in terms of a jumpsuit or a simple outfit, but for those who had planned something bigger, they’ve worn their traditional gown that they’d planned to wear.
When it comes to the grooms, they have been pretty consistent throughout the pandemic. They’re quite lucky as they’re not really affected, it’s the brides who decide whether they still want to go big or not. If you’re a groom wearing a beautifully tailored suit, you’ll wear that whether it’s a small or large wedding. Most of our wedding have the men wearing tailored suits and their groomsmen wearing matching suits. You get the odd groom who will be more casual with a casual jacket.
With the government’s roadmap due to come to an end on 21st June, how are you planning for the anticipated surge in wedding bookings?
We’re lucky as we have a variety of 11 different spaces, so we can cater for all options and do multiple weddings on one date.
In terms of the couples who had to postpone, we’ve already got those rescheduled in for when we re-start. They obviously go as a priority and then the new enquiries will be booked in after that. We’ve already done a lot of work, we’ve had to book A, B and sometimes C dates in the diary for them over the last 12 months. We’ve learned from the various lockdowns to have a back up plan!
People want to have something to look forward to, so we’re definitely seeing an increase in the later weddings in the winter. Some couples are set in what they want and a summer wedding is non-negotiable, so they’ve re-scheduled for 12 months later.
In theory, from June 21st you can have as many guests as you want, but people are still treading with caution. May is really busy – we’d anticipated that a lot of couples who had held out this long would wait until they can invite as many people as they want, but then many people have adjusted their thinking and decided to have smaller numbers and go ahead before the restrictions are lifted entirely.
From May onwards, we’re flat out from Wednesday to Saturday most weeks. We’ve also started seeing some bookings for Mondays too. September is absolutely heaving for us, and we’ve got lots of bookings from October and beyond over the weekends. Availability is getting quite slim, and we’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks we’ve had a to start turning people away from certain dates because we’re just so busy.
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Feature Credits - with thanks to:
@wetherallphotography
@blossomandthreads
@Tashlivesey.makeup
@lambettownhall
To request a brochure for Lambeth Town Hall email the team at venues@lambeth.gov.uk