Post-Attack Couples in Mood for Matrimony
Darcy Rowan and Antal Voros had discussed the possibility of marriage during their five-month courtship, but after watching the events of Sept. 11 unfold on television, their desire to bond became more urgent.
Voros headed to a southern New Jersey mall to shop for a ring that week and presented Rowan with the diamond one month later.
“We had talked about getting married, but this made me think maybe I shouldn’t wait as long,” said Voros, 42, who lives in Elmer, N.J., two hours away from Rowan, a Manhattan resident.
There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that more people are getting engaged these days, although there aren’t any hard statistics to back that up. Many retailers, from moderate-price David’s Bridal to luxury goods seller Ashford.com, are reporting a jump in sales of wedding merchandise, including gowns and rings.
There’s also an uptick in the number of people setting up bridal registries.
The surge in business is a pleasant surprise for the $70-billion bridal industry, which traditionally does the bulk of its business from January through March as couples prepare for summer weddings.
“This is usually a quiet period, the least busy time,” said Ingrid Kelly, director of special events for Conshohocken, Pa.-based David’s Bridal, which operates 144 stores nationwide. “But we are seeing a tremendous increase in bridal registries.”
Kelly said she’s hearing that some customers are moving up their wedding dates from 2004 and 2003 to 2002.
Sales of engagement diamonds at Bluenile.com, an online jewelry store, have shot up 20% since Sept.11 compared with the same period last year, said Diane Irvine, the company’s chief financial officer.
Ashford.com had a 25% jump in sales of engagement and wedding rings, said Cheryl Holland, senior vice president of merchandising.
The wedding industry typically is one of the few sectors that holds up in a recession, although couples tend to scale back on expenses when money is tight. The number of weddings in the U.S. has stayed constant, at about 2.4 million per year, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
“Bridal is one of the very few businesses that is doing well, and totally defies economic recession and terrorism concerns,” said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard’s Retail Trend Report, based in Upper Montclair, N.J. “In fact, the greater the uncertainties of the time, the greater apparently the eagerness to get married and form a family.”
Rowan and Voros, both divorced, are planning a more intimate ceremony because this is the second time around. She will wear a simple dress for the wedding, set for November 2002.
On the other hand, Sept. 11 prompted Patty Walsh of Waterbury, Conn., to spend $6,000 more on her wedding, padding an initial budget of $14,000.
“I realized that what’s money at this point. I wanted my wedding to be the best it could possibly be,” Walsh said.
The post-Sept. 11 rise in bridal business surprised David Liu, chief executive of the Knot, a leading wedding resource on the Internet. The Knot compared its online traffic during the first week of September with traffic during the first week of October, expecting a negative effect.
Instead, Liu found a 10% increase in bridal registries. The site also had a 17% gain in traffic to its marriage-license finder service during that period. The Knot also has seen a gain in advertising from tuxedo retailers and photographers, who are trying to offset a slump in the corporate black-tie business, he said.
