The Equinox Golf Resort and Spa in Manchester on Wednesday, May 15, 2024. Photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger
MANCHESTER — One afternoon in February, a woman in a strapless white gown rendezvoused with a man in a tux on the grounds of The Equinox resort. They held hands, hugged and kissed before the woman disappeared into one of the buildings.
That evening, under trees strung with fairy lights, Hannah Beaulieu and Liam Noonan again met outdoors — this time to pose for photos as newlyweds — while their family and friends celebrated in a resort ballroom.
Liam Noonan and Hannah Beaulieu held a wintertime wedding at the Equinox resort in Manchester on Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. Photo courtesy of Sixpence Studios
Beaulieu and Noonan are among six couples who’ve held “winter” weddings at the Equinox so far this year, with three more booked in November. The resort has hosted 11 cold-season weddings since 2023, a couple of years into marketing itself as a year-round wedding venue, especially among couples looking for a destination wedding.
“Instead of always showing summer and fall weddings in all of your advertising, I make sure that we have winter weddings that are in there as well,” said Rob Booth, director of sales and marketing at The Equinox. “You want to show all seasons.”
Such a marketing strategy is what the Vermont Association of Wedding Professionals advises wedding vendors to undertake as the industry foresees a slower year, following a boom in 2022. That year, according to the association, the United States as well as Vermont recorded the biggest number of marriages since 1984, partly because couples postponed their nuptials during the early years of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2022, two years after the pandemic reached the U.S., 2.4 million marriages took place nationwide and 6,105 in Vermont, said association board member Talena Companion, citing data from the trade group Wedding Report. (The numbers run the gamut, from “smaller elopements to multimillion-dollar weddings.”)
Last year’s marriage figures, she said, dipped to 2.05 million nationwide and 4,994 statewide. Wedding industry insiders expect this year’s count to further fall as an effect of pandemic disruptions to the usual dating patterns.
Due to social distancing in 2020 and 2021, Companion said, not as many romantic relationships started or blossomed during this period. She said this resulted in fewer couples getting engaged one-and-a-half to three years later — the customary dating period before marriage — and thus fewer couples holding weddings after nine to 18 months of preparations.
“That puts us in this time frame right here,” Companion said. “We’re seeing that (wedding) curve come down.”
On top of the slide in demand, she said, the competition among providers of wedding services and products has become fiercer because of an increase in vendors during the 2022 wedding boom. There are now more vendors trying to win over a smaller number of engaged couples.
Industry analysts expect to see the wedding numbers rebound to the yearly average in 2025. In the meantime, to stay competitive, the Vermont Association of Wedding Professionals is advising vendors to better understand the needs of their target clientele and improve their sales and marketing strategies.
“Are they nailing their marketing? Do they have something new and unique to offer?” Companion said.
Higher-end vendors, meanwhile, are expected to better weather the headwinds since they’ve achieved a certain reputation due to their industry experience and performance over time. Nevertheless, some have made investments that further strengthen their position in the market.
The Lincoln Hall, as seen here on Friday, May 10, is scheduled to open this summer. Photo by Tiffany Tan/VTDigger
Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home, is another Manchester wedding venue that’s in the luxury market category. Wedding basics such as the venue fee, food and drinks, flowers and live band usually bring the cost to a minimum of $100,000 for a party of 200, said Carmine Cole, HIldene’s director of private functions.
After doing only a handful of weddings last year while constructing a new event venue, the Lincoln Hall, Hildene will be returning to its regular wedding programming when the building opens in June. Lincoln Hall will allow Hildene to hold weddings and other events year-round. Before it was constructed, wedding receptions at the historic property were held under a tent between May and October.
Wedding receptions at Hildene, the Lincoln Family Home in Manchester, were held under a tent, as seen in here in the summer of 2021. Photo courtesy of Bill Messenetti
“The tent, obviously, was seasonal,” Cole said. “It’s something that can’t be offered in the wintertime because of the weight of the snow, the wind.”
This year, he said, Hildene has 33 weddings scheduled just from July to October, compared with 40 during their longer wedding season in 2022. The site has 26 weddings already booked for 2025 and just received confirmation for one in the summer of 2026.
Social media is fueling the popularity of destination weddings by raising people’s awareness of faraway venues and giving couples a platform to put a spotlight on their special day, according to Cole.
Most couples who marry in the area come from East Coast states, such as Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, according to multiple wedding venue organizers. And many of these couples have some sort of emotional connection to Vermont, such as a childhood home, school or ski trips.
Wedding cocktails are held at the formal gardens of Hildene, the Lincoln Family Home in Manchester. Photo courtesy of Jesse Schloff
“They have very happy memories associated with the area. This is their happy place,” said Tajlei Levis, director of events at The Wilburton, a Manchester property that has hosted weddings for decades. “They want to celebrate and make more memories here.”
Boston-based newlyweds Beaulieu and Noonan chose Vermont for their wedding because both had fond memories of the state from vacations with family and friends. Beaulieu said in an email that she was inspired to have a “true winter wedding,” with pine trees and snow on the ground, after seeing photos of her parents’ February wedding three decades ago.
She wanted to recreate that magical, wintery scene. “Of course we were surprised when our day turned out to be 60 (degrees) and rainy,” she said, “but that’s New England for ya!”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Fewer Vermont weddings expected this year after boom in 2022.