Wedding venues experience busiest season in 40 years due to COVID-19 backlog

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - During 2020 when COVID-19 hit, many businesses were affected, forcing them to shut down, and push events back, including weddings, causing a massive backlog still today.

“I would say this year we’ve had at least about a 50 percent increase over 2020. When COVID hit and we did loose half of our season. It varies just because a lot of the weddings we lost moved up to 2021 and 2022,” said Shelia Chick, owner and operator of Destiny’s Garden.

Wedding venues have reported up to a 50-percent increase this season, due to the back log of weddings delayed from COVID-19 not allowing large gatherings and causing venues to find ways to combat the surge.

“People that are deciding to re-book from 2020, they are going ahead and taking days other than Saturday. We’ve had weekends where we did three in a row,” said Shelia Chick.

Venues have gotten creative to make sure they are able to handle brides and the needs they have, including opening more often to make sure their days are still perfect.

“This year we’ve had an increase that we’re also doing Monday weddings, we’ve done Thursday weddings this year, which is one thing that is kind of out of the normal. It’s just that we’ve been busier, we just try to provide the best services that we can and we’ve expanded the calendar to do more than just weekend weddings” said Shelia Chick.

We did reach out to other venues in the Amarillo area, but have not received any replies.

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