The UK government has released new guidelines for weddings in England. Earlier, during July, only six people could attend a wedding reception, and, at the of July, the government had allowed 30 people at the ceremonies.
But now, PM Boris Johnsons has said, "Indoor performances will not resume, pilots of larger gatherings in sports venues and conference centres will not take place, and wedding receptions of up to 30 people will not be permitted." This decision will prevail upto two weeks from August 1 until further notice.
When the lockdown was imposed in the month of March, around 73,000 weddings were postponed. In the pre-Covid world, the cost of an average Asian wedding was between £30,000 to £50,000, with a guest-list running between 500-1000 people.
In May 2020, Asian Voice had reported that the UK’s wedding industry is among one of the hardest hits, as the Coronavirus pandemic led to limitations on UK’s public gatherings and hosting of events. Asian Voice reached out to banquet and catering companies to check the status of their business now, since the government has published new guidelines for weddings.
Arjun Varma, CEO Chakra Group has a grim forecast for the industry even though the lockdown relaxations have been put in place. “Covid-19 has literally destroyed the events of weddings and catering. The bottom line at the end of the day we as a business have probably gone down from having our best ever year pre-booked in 2019 for you lose 20% to 50% of your revenue, you lose a hundred percent so very few businesses apart from the hospitality sector there is no revenue model at all existing in the hospitality sector thousands and thousands of catering and event planning companies have been laid off.”
Varma feels that the government has been really swayed by the restaurant industry. “So for the moment giving a live example for this week, I had a 300 thousand Euro destination wedding in Italy for a beautiful couple but we are doing now a food delivery drop for 20 people to their house in North London so the scale is completely asymmetrical and there is no chance of any survival,” he said.
Arjun also shared that he had issues with furloughing his staff with HMRC on one of his companies. “They are being very pedantic about it because they are saying it's a deadline issue but was missed by the accountant who lost his 41-year-old brother to coronavirus and they are not being sympathetic to that. So, the entire industry is collapsing.” He also feels that this whole experience is also shifting people’s priorities. “Somebody, who had a 50 million and wanted to spend five hundred thousand on his daughter's wedding, post-Covid, his net worth might have come down to less than 50%.”
Arjun thinks that there is no end in sight because right now there might be 30 people in future that will become 50 or 100. “If they are expecting a second wave to come which might be happening sometime in winter, we may have another lockdown imposed. Until there is a vaccine, how can an industry that is worth a multi-billion dollars, think of surviving?” he said.
Atul Lakhani, CEO Sanjay Foods, who is also the CEO of IXL Events Centre Ltd said, “I wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak through our local MP and also via a Caterer's Association that we set up over 3 months ago. To this date, we have received no response. In fact, they have not offered any support to the Events or Wedding industry. The official line by the Government is that certain sectors will miss out. This is an act of betrayal by the Government as the wedding industry alone is worth £10.5 billion. The Government has not provided any road map to how our industry will reopen; they have merely allowed small scale wedding receptions from 1st August 2020 for a maximum of 30 people which does not generate any revenue.
“The discontinuation of the Furlough Scheme from October 2020 will invariably mean that we will have reached a point of a cliff edge and thereby will have to start laying employees off. Even the most robust of businesses will find it difficult to maintain all their workforce.
“This has not only resulted in a paralysis in our industry, it has also destroyed customer confidence within the market. For now, our business has pivoted to launch a takeaway and delivery service which is allowing us to reconnect with our customers. Unfortunately, the revenues involved in this type of operation are minute compared to our outgoings. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has indicated that the UK should be coming out of Covid-19 by the mid of next year. This then suggests that large scale gatherings will not be permitted till then. The outlook for now is very bleak and very uncertain.”
But Firdaus Nagree, Founder of Cavendish Banqueting said, the demand and bookings for him haven’t taken a cut post-Covid. “We have taken advice from the local authorities and had several meetings with them to make sure that we are well within their guidelines. Working with them has been very productive for us.
“We have just been using the Government guidelines to help people plan their events because what we realise is that people still want to go ahead with their event, they still want to celebrate their big-happy day. Rather than looking at it from a negative point of view, we have created a new process which is working really well where we’re saying to customers that they can spread their event throughout the day. So, we’ll have some guests coming in, giving their well wishes, meeting the bride and the groom, doing their celebration and then leaving at a certain time. And then, the next wave of guests coming in and doing the same thing, so the event becomes a bit longer and not all the guests come at the same time,” he said.
“By doing an event as a staggered event, it means more work for us, and a bigger staff cost for us but that’s what we’re willing to do to keep the events going,” Firdaus added.
