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How the wedding industry has changed amid the coronavirus outbreak

Yahoo Finance’s Myles Udland and Melody Hahm join Jen Rogers and Seana Smith to discuss the challenges and changes that they’ve had to make for their weddings as the coronavirus’ social distancing measures have uprooted the entire industry.

Video Transcript

JEN ROGERS: Welcome to our latest weekly special, "Road to Recovery, I Don't: Weddings On Hold." so weddings are more than just the marriage of two people. They are engines of economic activity. There's the venue, there's the dress, there's the music, not to mention everything that the guests spend. They've got the plane ticket, the hotel, the gift. It's a $78 billion industry that has all but been ground to a halt by coronavirus.

Every year in this country, there are over 2 million weddings. And here at Yahoo Finance, we have two that are planning their weddings right now, "Final Round" anchor Myles Udland and West Coast correspondent Melody Hahm who join us right now. So we thought we would use them as a case study for what challenges and what changes couples are facing right now in this new landscape. We also have "Final Round" anchor Seana Smith here, a recent newlywed herself to help us out.

I want to start with Myles, though. So Myles, I mean, you've got your wedding. It's coming up in October. I guess can you talk us through what kind of changes you have been making or adjustments you've been making to your plans?

MYLES UDLAND: So the first thing we did is we kind of just cut the guest list by, like, 80%. So right now, the working plan-- and we're set to get married in New Jersey, which is a pretty hot spot. So I can't imagine that gatherings over, let's say, 50 are going to be allowed by October 10. So we're planning on immediate family and the wedding party, which is like 28 people right now, something like that.

And I think because of the politics, as you guys know, of, like, guest lists-- you know, Jen, you're done. Sorry about that. It's like, when you start bringing a few other people in, then it's like, where do you draw the line? So if we kind of keep it at that, I think we're just going to do, like, a souped-up dinner party, as it were. Our venue's been pretty good about it because it's a smaller club. And I don't know, we'll have, like, a big, fun party in 2022 or whatever when everyone feels better.

But you know, we've been engaged for a year now. We've been together almost four years. We're both turning 30 this year. It seemed like let's just get it going, you know? How much longer do we need to wait? We already felt like we're probably waiting too long anyway. So that's kind of where things stand. And honestly, it makes it less stressful. We haven't had to do the big invites. We've-- you know, like, we haven't done all the stuff that you would have to be doing right now, for better or for worse.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, Myles, disinviting people on live TV. But you bring up the point that so many of these couples are just faced with such-- this tough decision. And Melody Hahm, I want to get you into the conversation. You were engaged at the end of year in December, originally planning your wedding for October. Where do your plans stand?

MELODY HAHM: Yeah, 2020 was supposed to be our year as well. I mean, my fiancee is from Kansas City. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl. We ran a marathon, the LA Marathon. Things are supposed to be shaping up where 2020 was finally going to be this monumental milestone year. And quickly, we realized that that was not going to be the case, although I do have to say I'm really grateful that we started looking at venues basically two weeks after we got engaged.

Initially, I was like, hey, why don't we enjoy this engagement period? And then Jason, my fiance, I really pushed and said, no, we should at least explore and see what's out there so that we can decide and cross things off our list. Thank god for that because we decided on a spot in Malibu, and we were originally, kind of like Myles, thinking of, like, 150 people. It could have kind of ballooned to 200 I think, just based on the number of people that he knows around here. And then we have a lot of family from out of town, so folks from Korea, my whole family is based in New York and New Jersey.

So a lot of those plans were quickly kind of put in the air, right? Where I don't know if I would want to enforce that upon them. I don't know if I would want to make them feel uncomfortable. Would people be having to wear masks, even if we were allowed to have that big kind of gathering? And our conclusion is we would not want that to be the case.

So all of our vendors, the venue itself, one of the kind of unexpected blessings is that California is so used to natural disasters that a lot of things have had to-- have been postponed or cancelled because of wildfires, because of hurricanes or earthquakes. So there are a lot of those sorts of policy measures in place, even when we were signing the initial contract for the venue prior to the pandemic.

But a lot of these mom-and-pop stores and small caterers, the small florists that we're working with, they have all been so flexible and reasonable, which is probably two adjectives you don't hear at all when you talk about the wedding industry. So I think that's been a real silver lining through all of this. And we may be pushing it to next September. We might just do the courthouse thing on our actual wedding date this year, but I think it would be really sad if we didn't have a full wedding.

MYLES UDLAND: And you know, Melody, we found the same thing with our vendors as well. And I think, you know, our photographer and our band both did the thing where, like, we talked to them, like, I think it was, like, six weeks ago. And they're like, you know, don't make any firm decisions yet. And we haven't made any super firm decisions. You know, it'd be nicer for them if we contracted 10 band members instead of four or five.

But ultimately, they were fine, you know, kind of not only going to a smaller, slimmed down package or whatever, but also letting us take till-- it'll probably just be till, like, mid-September to figure out exactly what the final plan is. And I think we both had a lot of anxiety sitting here, like, early April, wondering, were we locked in-- because we're only six months out. Are we locked into tens of thousands of dollars for something that we don't want? And the answer so far has been no, so that's at least been a small win, I guess.

JEN ROGERS: I think it's interesting, Myles, raising the question and the issue of timeline. It's like, how far out do you have to make a change? Like, when-- so Melody, as your thinking about this, you know, it used to be like, all right, you get the venue, and then once you send out the invitations, that's kind of the point you can't-- of no return. What is it now? I mean, what are you hearing from vendors? You say California's flexible but to a point, I imagine. How--

MELODY HAHM: Yes.

JEN ROGERS: --far out do you think people have to be deciding now? What's the advice you're getting?

MELODY HAHM: Well, especially because COVID has been such a moving target, it has been very difficult to figure out, when is the absolute latest date that we can communicate with you guys? And we have been very transparent about that, even before signing the contracts, being like, you have to give us that cutoff date. So for the most part, it has been about 90 days out, so three months before our wedding, which is in late October. So by this summer, basically, we have to decide, so within the next month or two.

We actually sent our save the dates that had kind of many asterisks saying, this may not actually happen, but please mark your calendars just so it's on, there but we will probably send a-- you know, a follow-up saying that it's very likely not going to happen. So we sent the save the date out probably end of April just so it was on people's radar. And for the most part, people are very excited about the possibility of a celebration. I just am thinking more and more that it might not be the most beautiful to do it this year.

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