Post-COVID wedding surge impacted by supply chain crunch, labor shortages: The Knot CEO

The Knot Worldwide CEO Tim Chi described on Thursday how the wedding landscape has shifted this year compared to last after many ceremonies were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, noting that the industry has recently been impacted by supply chain disruptions and labor shortages. 

"It’s quite a conundrum right now," Chi told "Cavuto: Coast to Coast" on Thursday. "We saw the largest pause button pressed in the wedding industry in the history of weddings last year as COVID hit and now that surge in demand is real through 2021 and into 2022." 

He went on to tell host Neil Cavuto that while he's seen an increase of about 25% more weddings, the supply chain issues and labor shortages that plague various industries across the nation are "real' and have created "a bit of a perfect storm." 

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Speaking with FOX Business’ Stuart Varney in April, Chi had predicted, citing data collected by The Knot Worldwide, that although the wedding industry in 2020 saw a hefty number of postponements due to the pandemic, a "strong boom" was expected as 2021 progressed. His forecast turned out to be true at a time when the economy is facing challenges. 

America is experiencing a supply chain backlog that has left dozens of ships anchored in the Pacific Ocean and store shelves across the country empty. Experts have said that every step in the supply chain is experiencing its own challenges, brought on by labor shortages and pandemic-induced e-commerce shopping sprees. 

Chi pointed out on Thursday that one of the trends that have developed amid the surge in demand has been more weddings being held "off the shoulders of the weekends." 

"So you should expect more wedding invitations on Thursdays and Fridays and Mondays and Tuesdays, really just to soak up some of that excess demand that’s going through," he told Cavuto, noting that this "trend" is expected to last through 2022. 

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He also warned that those who are getting engaged right now are going to be planning well into 2022 or even 2023 because "a lot of the dates are full right now." 

"We’ve certainly encouraged couples, particularly in this environment, to plan as early as possible," Chi continued. "Usually your average time to wedding is 14 months. You want to try to get ahead of that right now, particularly for goods and services as well as tents, flowers, registry products, all of those things." 

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FOX Business’ Cortney Moore and Kelsey Koberg contributed to this report.