Today is National Wedding Planning Day, and Cheddar News' Shannon LaNier visited a bridal shop on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to get an inside look at the ongoing "wedding boom."
What is the wedding boom? Well, there were a record 2.6 million weddings in 2022, which is up from 1.9 million in 2021 and 1.3 million in 2020, according to a report from The Knot, a wedding planning agency.
That amounts to about 7,123 weddings per day in the United States. During these special events, guests spent an average of $460 to attend and more than $1,000 if the wedding required them to take a flight.
The current upswing in weddings follows a sharp dip in 2020 due to the pandemic. Now the competition for vendors and venues is getting stiff, requiring even more planning.
Lauren Kay, executive director at The Knot, said the pandemic forced a number of changes to accommodate social distancing and other restrictions. This led couples to get more creative and add more personalized details to their weddings.
Now, in 2023, couples are carrying this trend forward. For example, many are holding "unplugged ceremonies" in which no photos or videos are allowed from guests. Another trend is more themed weddings, such as "Roaring '20s" and Star Wars.
The iconic Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has been chosen and it's a Norway spruce that comes from Vestal, New York, which is in the Binghamton area.
Saudi Arabia became the only country to enter a bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup after Australia backed out, claiming they were focusing on other major sporting events.
Manga is one of Japan's most beloved comic art forms and an exhibit in New York is showing the work of some of Japan's most talented illustrators. Keiko Asai, of Ginza Sony Park, joined Cheddar News to explain the exhibit and what to expect when you visit.
Five months before the deadliest mass shooting in Maine’s history, the gunman’s family alerted the local sheriff that they were becoming concerned about his deteriorating mental health while he had access to firearms, authorities said Monday.
