Wait WHAT? Thank you Nick Ferrari for pushing on weddings. Paul Scully is wrong. We take 75% of our bookings in Jan/Feb. Everyone reporting a much lower level of enquiries. AGAIN. That winter revenue in new bookings is critical for *most* biz until peak season April-Sep.

3. There are STILL a huge number of postponed weddings in the pipeline for 2022. This means that many wedding businesses are still working with couples from 2020, and are still recouping income lost from previous years.

Many weddings this year are NOT new income for wedding businesses so let's not equate being busy to having bounced back to normal trading levels.

4. There is STILL a complete lack of understanding of the industry from this government. We are STILL being brushed off and we are STILL being massively impacted by a lack of consumer confidence at our busiest time for enquiries and bookings.

75% of new bookings typically are made in January and February each year, providing essential cash flow for large and small businesses alike until our busy season starts in Spring and Summer. This critical period of trading has been impacted repeatedly, and ignored each time.

Couples want to plan, they want to book, they want to invest with independent businesses across the U.K. We know that weddings will continue to be a huge contributor to jobs and the economy for many more years to come.

#WhatAboutWeddings sincerely want to help, as we always have, and so we continue our open offer to meet and discuss this in more detail, and to give your team access to our latest research and statistics.

Please Minister Scully, can we stop pretending that the wedding industry is now back to normal and let's get on with positive and productive support measures, because surely a £14.7bn industry that serves every constituency in the country deserves better than this?

Completely agree 👇 Add in the fact that a good portion of 2022 weddings are postponed from '20 and '21 and the problem compounds itself as many '22 weddings aren't new income. We need new bookings and for that, couples need confidence.

Postponed weddings do not represent new revenue for wedding businesses 👇 We are still feeling the impact of restrictions from almost 2 years ago, let alone the impact of the current issues.

What About Weddings Rebooked weddings constitute around 90% of my 2022. I’ve not increased their prices due to Covid. It’s not good for any small businesses. 😞

As we were saying... 👇 However busy wedding businesses might be this year, we're just catching up, not bouncing back. We are still recouping revenue from almost two years ago, this year is not busy with new income.

Thousands of couples postponed weddings and suppliers had their income wiped out. Couples couldn’t celebrate milestone moments with their family and friends in professionally managed venues. But this bunch can have drinks in a garden, simply to enjoy the sunshine. FFS.

2 postponements, in the end only immediate family and close friends attended, guests wore masks. But they did whatever they wanted. This makes me so angry.

Which makes having to pay bounce back loans a bitter pill to swallow. Our industry is absolutely not fully recovered yet. Why are these loans not treated more like a student loan with a much longer repayment period? And that we're paying interest on them at all feels immoral.

The absolute mess of govt and a PM in meltdown is infecting the economy. Business/consumer confidence falling fast. Cost of living going up and inflation a real concern. Where is the economic plan? Why is Sunak so quiet at the moment? We desperately need good leadership.

I couldn’t hate this article more if I tried. Aside from the fact it’s yet another swipe at a female led talented creative sector, it’s under researched and misinformed. Let me tell you why…

I couldn't not respond to this article in the The Guardian instagram.com/p/Ch7AugugoGz/. I don't want to tag the author as I've no wish to make this personal, but please, stop taking your cheap swipes at the wedding industry. It's appalling.