Reopening Of Wedding Industry Welcome News For Business, Brides And Grooms
BOSTON (CBS) - When Governor Baker announced the reopening of weddings on Thursday, Alicia Braga of Woburn was ecstatic. "If I didn't get the news when I was sitting in a car, I probably would've been jumping up and down," she told WBZ.
Braga and her fiancé have had their Boston wedding planned since 2019, and she's checking Governor Baker's updates daily to see if their June 2021 date would be possible.
On Thursday, she got the news she had been waiting for, as Baker announced that starting March 22, indoor weddings of 100 people and outdoor weddings of 150 people -- with a dance floor -- will be allowed in Massachusetts.
This reopening is a huge jump from prior restrictions and signifies the start of "Reopening Phase 4" thanks to vaccine distribution.
"I can't stop smiling," Michael Salvati of Mike's Music, Inc. told WBZ. "It's amazing news. It's huge news. We've been waiting for this."
His Taunton storage warehouse has more or less been collecting dust for the past year, as weddings and corporate events shut down in the state. In a typical year, he'd DJ 3-4 weddings a weekend while working corporate events during the week. "We were the first to shut down, and here we are almost a full year getting the green light to come back," Salvati said. "It's so exciting."
Other brides like Lindsay Duffy of Watertown have planned and postponed their wedding multiple times. "We thought we were being extra cautious by pushing to May 2021," Duffy said. "What do we do if someone gets sick at our wedding? There's that level of stress. We don't want to be the reason someone ends up in the hospital." Duffy and her fiancé have postponed their wedding a second time, to August 2021.
"It's been hard," Alicia Braga added. "There were a few sleepless nights."
Still, she is excited that her wedding will now be possible. "I know masks are going to be at my wedding and I'm perfectly OK with that," she said. "I'm just happy to have everybody there."
