BATON ROUGE – The wedding industry could take a serious hit due to Covid-19 precautions. 

With the Governor’s guidelines banning gatherings of more than 50 people, many brides and grooms have to change their wedding dates.

The restriction lasts until April 13, and then Gov. John Bel Edwards will re-evaluate them.

“That’s what is the most nerve-racking part about everything is not having a timeline,” said Jenny Broussard, the General Manager at Ruffino’s De La Ronde Hall. “As a wedding coordinator, I live off of a timeline.”

Broussard says two weddings originally scheduled to take place in March at the site in downtown Baton Rouge have already been pushed back.

“We’re playing the waiting game for my April and May brides,” said Broussard.

It’s a similar situation for wedding planner Allie Wester. Her business, Weddings by Allie, moved six weddings back with 10 more leaning toward the same fate.

“This is such an unknown to everyone that we don’t know when the ending will be, that’s the problem,” said Wester. “I’m looking at China and Italy and I’m thinking to myself, it’s taking them a good four months maybe to bounce back, so on the side of caution I’m suggesting my May and June weddings to just reconsider. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Weddings bring in a lot of revenue for places like the Old Governor’s Mansion.

“Absolutely,” said Farleigh Jackson, the Executive Director for Preserve Louisiana who operates the historic site. “That’s our largest source of revenue, and that revenue that comes into the Mansion through event rentals funds our mission of cultural architectural preservation throughout the state.”

While no parties involved want to change the date of a wedding, there are only so many weekends in a year. Wedding planners say happy couples may have to start considering different options.

“There’s an option of using a week night or Sunday,” said Wester. “That’s wide open and venues do like working during the week too.”