Coronavirus: Melbourne wedding venues, function centres swamped with cancellations
Wedding and reception venues are suffering as the coronavirus pandemic triggers mass cancellations, with one owner putting hand sanitiser on every table, and another saying his business is “bleeding” from the losses.
East
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Couples are saying “I don’t” as coronavirus fears lead to cancellations of weddings, hitting reception centres across Melbourne.
Functions centre Daniel Son part-owner Bita Lowry said their business, which is located in Hawthorn and Murrumbeena, had “a fair few” weddings and functions postponed or cancelled.
“Most of them have guests coming from overseas, so they would be quarantined and can’t come,” she said.
“Pretty much everything in April has been cancelled, but we do have a wedding this weekend.
“It is pretty much free now until mid-May.
“We have also had a lot of school functions cancel, even though they are for less than 500 people.
Mrs Lowry said it was “not ideal”.
“We are staying open for trade during the day,” she said. “We have more than 5m between tables.”
Meanwhile, a prominent Malvern business which wanted to remain anonymous, said it was “literally taking it a day at a time”.
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“A few (weddings) have been postponed — for one of them the bride and groom flew in today and had to be quarantined,” an employee said.
“We are offering a change of date with no admin fees.”
The Baths Middle Brighton owner, Paul Raynor, confirmed a few couples had decided to postpone their weddings.
“People have been uncertain, we want them to enjoy their special day and we want the best outcome,” Mr Raynor said.
“For now we’re operating as business as usual, but we are monitoring the situation closely.
“We’re working closely with everyone involved.”
He said couples could postpone their event until a later date.
An official statement from the venue revealed that deposits would be refunded if it was forced to close.
But if it remained open and events were cancelled, couples would lose their deposits.
Mr Raynor said guest and staff health was their top priority and extra protocols around cleaning were in place to protect workers and customers.
Normanby House Reception Centre director Tony Tsourdalakis said the Thornbury venue was “bleeding”.
“I’ve had about six cancellations so far,” he said.
Mr Tsourdalakis said they had been putting sanitiser on every table and in bar and smoking areas, but feared there was little he could do to prevent cancellations.
“It’s really going to affect us financially,” he said.
“I’m scared.
“I hope they find a cure for this thing very quickly.”
The manager of a Northcote venue, who declined to be named, said for them it was “business as usual”.
He believed as a smaller venue it was less likely to be affected, and had events scheduled to go ahead later this month.
Ascot House Receptions general manager Gian Blundo said there had been several cancellations, including a wedding set for September this year.
Mr Blundo said the event was only set to hold about 120 people — far below the Health Department’s recommendation to cancel events of 500 persons or more.
“Weddings that are smaller you’d assume everything’s fine and it’s a green light, which it is,” he said.
“It’s still quite daunting because it’s supposed to be the best day of your life, you’re supposed to be really happy and now you’re hit with all this stuff.”
The venue has also received several corporate cancellations, including a last minute cancellation for today by the Royal Children’s Hospital.
At the Essendon Masonic Centre, nine lodges that meet at the venue have cancelled both their monthly meetings for March and April.
One of the center’s regular hirers, a church group, has cancelled all of it meetings until further notice.
Fawkner’s Firenze Events has already been hit hard by the coronavirus madness, with four cancellations on Monday.
But manager Rita Speziale said the cancellations had already been piling in since as early as Friday.
“It’s mainly the elderly birthdays, we do a lot of 90th birthday parties,” she said.
At Aurora Receptions in Brunswick, three cancellations have already been made for next week.
Owner Laura Ghattas said people were cancelling because they were worried people wouldn’t turn up.
“We haven’t been getting any new bookings either,” she said.
“The last one was three weeks ago and it was just an inquiry.”
Ms Ghattas said she was quite worried the situation would only get worse and more cancellations would come.
Casen MacKenzie, of Sunbury’s Goona Warra Vineyard, said: “We’ve had one or two (bookings) where they or close family members were due to arrive from overseas, we’ve had to say because of the two-week isolation they won’t be able to attend the venue,”
“It’s been a heartbreaking thing to have to tell people, but we have to comply with what the government is asking us to do.”
In Warrandyte, Bramleigh Estate manager Maryanne Lowe said a number of weddings had been postponed while other were proceeding with “some nervous brides”.
“We had a wedding next Friday with guests due to fly in from Singapore, so they’ve postponed for six months,” she said.
“Four new clients booked on the weekend, so we haven’t ground to a stop but we are making allowances and we have had a number of guests postpone.”
Ms Lowe said about 80 per cent of functions were proceeding as planned at this stage, with some changes introduced to service procedures.
Guests are being asked to refrain from picking canapes of food trays, with staff to serve them with tongs.
Staff will be wearing gloves to collect glassware plates and cutlery, but will not be wearing face masks.
“We’ve not gone to the stage where we’re wearing masks, if it got to that point, we would close,” Ms Lowe said.
Icon Photography owner Con Tsioukis said there had been some minor disruptions to weddings he was attending across Melbourne.
“It’s mainly affected guest travelling from overseas and interstate. Last week we had 15 guests not attend – most of them were elderly,” Mr Tsioukis said.
“Inquiries for weddings next year are still coming through as normal – so that hasn’t affected us at all.”
Yarra Valley’s Poet’s Lane wedding co-ordinator Fiona Roberts said the main disruption was overseas guests being unable to attend.
“We cater for a lot of Asian weddings and some guests who have travelled from overseas today have to remain in quarantine — that is our biggest disruption,” Ms Roberts said.
“We’ve had no cancellations yet to date,” she said.
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Epping’s Manor on High is refusing any customers who had plans for an event with more than 500 people.
“We haven’t cancelled any events as we didn’t have any large gatherings planned in the next couple of months,” manager Tony Buccheri said.
“For now any events with people over 500 can no longer partake until notification by the government so we have to abide by that.”
Bulleen’s Veneto Club is continuing to host small events such as wakes and baptisms, and its bistro and gaming sections remain open.
However, nine events over the next fortnight have been cancelled by organisers including private functions and a 21st birthday party.