CLAY COUNTY – Wedding vendors and venues are feeling the effects of not just coronavirus postponements, but caution around rescheduling and new bookings as well.

Most weddings have at least 10 people and during the current restrictions brought on by COVID-19, those weddings aren’t allowed. Weddings around the county have been postponed as a result and while couples lament what should have been their wedding, venues and vendors reliant on a steady flow of clients are hurting.

“That’s the scary part for us,” Generation Y Entertainment DJ Grayson Jones said. “We have no control. It’s all in the hands of the venues. If they open, we’ll be there but if they’re closed, there’s really nothing we can do. We rely on them and they rely on couples getting married.”

Couples aren’t getting married right now, so venues aren’t holding weddings and that means that DJs don’t have weddings to perform at right now. Wedding venue Clay Theater owner Andrea Vallencourt said her venue started to take hits around the end of March. When the coronavirus was rumbling overseas, many states were still proceeding as usual as were wedding ceremonies and receptions.

Vallencourt remembers a week early in April where it seemed like every day, another couple was postponing their wedding. She said that every couple so far has been extremely nice to work with.

“We’ve actually been really lucky,” Vallencourt said. “All of our couples have been very reasonable.”

Vallencourt said most weddings have been postponed to the fall and that overall, the Clay Theater hasn’t been impacted too much just yet. She said future bookings have slowed down a bit.

“I think people are just worried about picking a date and then not being able to have their wedding because of [the coronavirus],” Vallencourt said.

Jones said he began to feel the effects of the virus on his industry near the end of February. The first wedding postponement happened around then, and the postponements snowballed from there.

He said he performed at weddings he could but after the state shut down all large groups, there wasn’t much he could do.

“When couples postpone, we aren’t getting that final payment or deposit we were expecting because they don’t have to do that until the month before the wedding,” Jones said. “Vendors like us...we aren’t seeing the relief from the state or federal government so when couples postpone, we are really taking a hit.”

Despite the troubles the coronavirus has caused in the wedding industry, he said most of the couples he’s worked with have been very helpful. Brides and grooms are working to keep the same team of vendors, he said, which he and other wedding vendors are grateful for during these times.

“It’s scary though,” Jones said. “We have no timeline of when we can go back to work. This is a part of our livelihood and to not know when we’ll be back in weddings, it’s tough.”