DETROIT — Anna Connolly’s birthday surprise for her longtime boyfriend took a sudden turn down the Detroit River about 14 months ago when Jonah Newblatt popped the question.

Newblatt tells Connoll, 25, that they are going to meet his parents for a drink at the Atwater Brewery. She didn’t give much thought to the evening — until Newblatt, 25, suggested they walk the Detroit riverfront before heading to Atwater.

They celebrated their engagement that night at a rolling pub in Detroit with friends and family. What Connolly didn’t anticipate for her 225-person wedding at Crofoot in Pontiac were the planning challenges ahead for her, Newblatt and so many couples like them.

“It’s just me, (while) working full time, it’s definitely been a lot,” said Connolly, coach at Detroit Sweat in Royal Oak. Lesson one: She wishes she had booked a wedding planner to handle communication with venues and vendors actively trying to meet the growing demand from others for wedding-related services.

Many venues and businesses in the wedding industry are scrambling to meet the pent-up demand of the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing many to increase space and increase staff to keep pace with the needs of the bride and groom during this season. weddings.

The Circ and Root of Ann Arbor, Saint John’s Resort in Plymouth and Roostertail on Detroit’s riverfront have each invested in outdoor space that has allowed them to host weddings during the pandemic or help them manage raises current reservations.

The Roostertail’s outdoor terrace and side patio made co-owner Michael Schoenith proud that the venue didn’t have to cancel any weddings amid the pandemic and was able to reschedule 75.

“There are still a ton of weddings, but for our unique scenario, because we had so much outdoor space, we were able to maneuver a lot,” Schoenith said. “But I think a lot of places have had to postpone until now.”

During the pandemic, Roostertail added a 6,000 square foot tent, the largest tent it could accommodate, costing $100,000 and giving it a total of three outdoor spaces in 2020. It includes chandeliers, flower chandeliers hanging lights, theatrical lighting and custom bars “to accommodate the bride and groom who were planning to tie the knot when the pandemic hit,” Schoenith said.

“People can always tell they’re on the water,” he added. “The Roostertail is famous for being on the water, so we made it work.”

Couples struggle with the higher labor and food costs associated with financing their wedding. But “people are spending a lot more on weddings than they ever have because during COVID everyone has saved their money,” Schoenith said.

“They didn’t have anything to spend it on, they weren’t buying new dresses and new clothes, so now they spend it on their weddings or milestone birthdays,” he said. “We see thousands of people a week at events, but I still meet someone at every party who says ‘this is my first outing since the pandemic’.”

According to the Wedding Report, a wedding market research site, the average wedding in Michigan cost $17,500 in 2019, and in 2020 it’s down to $14,800. Last year, $20,600 was the average, about $3,000 more than the years before the pandemic.

How the pandemic is driving demand for venues, vendors and planners