How a local bridal shop is doing during the pandemic
REXBURG, Idaho (KIFI/KIDK) - All across the nation, brides are having to think of a 'Plan B' for their big weddings that were supposed to happen during the pandemic.
One local bridal shop in Rexburg tells us the cancellation of Prom has also impacted their sales.
Owner of Circle of Love, JC Weber told us last year they rented out almost 200 tuxedos, and this season they’ve only rented out 2.
Weber said April and May are typically the 'primetime' months for the business. It's where they earn almost a quarter of their revenue from brides and grooms purchasing their attire for summer weddings.
Although sales have been much lower than last year, Weber says he’s grateful for the ones they are getting.
"The good news is people are still getting married. That's a big aspect of our business. So when it comes to wedding dress purchases, we are going by appointment only. So we're still selling a few, we saw quite a few people are coming in but obviously not as many as previous compared to last year," Weber said.
He said in most cases these couples are still getting married in a small setting and they plan to have a big celebration once the pandemic is over. This forces the couples to have a tighter budget to support two events.
"The toughest part of those services, is that we're limited on the number of people we can have at the actual event so when it comes, you're typically going to have a photographer, but you're not going to go as big, maybe as before, which that might hurt them more, you know, hopefully, and even we see with their wedding dresses people are coming in with lower budgets, you know they don't maybe don't want something as fancy as they were going to have before," Weber said.
Weber told us with their savings, help from the government, and support from the community, they will hope to make it out of this just fine.
"There's some positives to this and you know we're looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, especially with the governor's order coming up here in the next month or so with the rebound Idaho. We're going to come out of this better than better than before," Weber said.
