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.
Chef Palak Patel's love of cooking started when she was a teenager searching for ways to fuse her mother's Indian recipes with some of her favorite American foods. Patel, author of cookbook 'The Chutney Life,' joined Cheddar News to share some of her favorite appetizers and snacks ahead of next month's Diwali festivities.
'Living for the Dead,' a new series from Kristen Stewart and the team behind 'Queer Eye', recently premiered on Hulu and follows five queer ghost hunters traveling around the country. The show's cast -- Ken Boggle, Roz Hernandez, Juju Bae, Logan Taylor and Alex Le May -- joined Cheddar News to discuss the project and what scary encounters they experienced while filming.
Britney Spears' highly anticipated memoir “The Woman in Me” will be released Tuesday, revealing the pop superstar's personal take on events that have played out publicly in her decades as one of the most scrutinized figures in American life, along with private moments that she previously kept under wraps.
The first museum in the U.S. dedicated to the climate crisis is in New York. Miranda Massie, director at The Climate Museum, joined Cheddar News how the museum uses art and cultural programming to help people understand how big of a role each and everyone plays in understanding and helping with the climate crisis.
