Will Same-Sex Marriage be a Boost to the Wedding Business?

Marriage rates in the U.S. are almost at an all-time low. And, as with so many other things, it’s probably the fault of the millennials.

“Millennials — people roughly ages 18 to 34 — continue to delay marriage because of economics, education and preference,” the Dallas Morning News reported. “In 1960, fewer than 8 percent of women and 13 percent of men married for the first time at age 30 or older, University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen has calculated.

“Now, nearly one-third of women and more than 40 percent of men who marry for the first time are 30 or older.”

And with the decline of the institution of American marriage, it naturally follows that there must be a decline in the institution of the American wedding.

If the trend were to continue, it would spell hard times for wedding singers and wedding planners, not to mention other wedding-based businesses that have not been the basis of romantic comedies.

But with the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, maybe — just maybe — Big Wedding will get the bailout it needs to survive.

“There’s going to be that many more marriages, it’s that simple,” predicted DJ Ace, the owner of Flawless Entertainment DJs in Long Beach, CA.

Same-sex marriage has been legal in California for seven years. Ace said he has “done a few gay marriages already,” but believes the Supreme Court ruling can only help.

“It’s a definite boost,” he said.

Kerrie Gallagher, a wedding planner with City Girl Weddings in Chicago, said that in her experience, the studies are all wrong. Plenty of people have been getting married, she said, at least in 2015.

“There are more people getting married, both straight and gay, going on six months now,” Gallagher said.

And people recently haven’t been waiting so long to tie the knot.

“It’s interesting, like six-month engagements — we don’t mind that,” Gallagher said.

Same-sex marriage legislation went into effect in Illinois in 2014, and City Girl Weddings has reaped the benefits, Gallagher said.

“It’s awesome,” she said. “We have planned three so far in the last couple of years, and we look forward to doing more.”

Richmond Hill, NY, wedding photographer Denis Gostev doesn’t think the federal law will change things much for his business since same-sex marriage has been legal in his state for nearly four years.

“If you asked me five years ago, maybe,” Gostev said. “It hasn’t truly been that big an issue in the last five years.

“In New York, it’s not that big a deal.”

But it is a big deal if you pay taxes and live in one of the states that had a same-sex marriage ban before last week’s historic and celebrated ruling. Crest Hill accountant Greg Severson of Cordano, Severson & Associates in Crest Hill, IL, said couples in civil unions were unable to take advantage of a married filing jointly tax return. That changed in Illinois when Gov. Pat Quinn signed same-sex marriage legislation, but was not the case elsewhere.

And with all this marrying (possibly) going on in the near future, it might spell an increase in divorces, which should be music to the ears of our nation’s attorneys.

Unfortunately for the lawyers of Joliet, IL, where same-sex marriage has been legal for a year, it hasn’t worked out that way — yet.

“I haven’t really noticed an increase in gay people getting divorced,” said attorney John Schrock of the Joliet law firm Sabuco, Beck, Hansen, Schrock & Pollack.

“You’d think you would see that,” Schrock said, “but it hasn’t come around.”