Sunday, August 13, 2006
Tech weddings
Campus ceremonies are good for business in Blacksburg.
The latest from The Ticker blog
BLACKSBURG -- When Melanie Waskey and Reza Hashmi began making wedding plans, location options were diverse and far-flung.
The California-based couple considered beach nuptials in Malibu, a destination wedding in the Caribbean and a ceremony in Northern Virginia, where both bride and groom have lived.
Each location had its advantages: proximity, exoticism, familiarity.
They settled on Blacksburg.
Although it's been eight years since the pair of Virginia Tech alumni left town, they married July 29 at Tech's War Memorial Chapel.
"We had a very tough time deciding, and it just seemed every time we kept coming back to Virginia Tech," Waskey said. "It had everything we wanted: the destination feel, the sentimental value and it's easy for our friends and family to get there, so it was practical."
Summer after summer, dozens of couples come to a similar conclusion.
The War Memorial Chapel will host 29 weddings this year from May through August.
From May to October, the Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech will be the site of about 12 more.
Like Waskey and Hashmi, many of the couples that marry on campus are no longer in school and have long since left the area.
Their trips back to Tech represent not only a reunion and homecoming, but also a boon for local businesses.
According to The Wedding Report, the average American wedding costs $27,450, and Abingdon-based bridal consultant Charlotte Powers Sutherland said couples from out of town will end up spending a lot of that locally.
"It impacts the economy as far as hotel accommodations and restaurants and the floral aspect -- just every single facet of a wedding is implemented from the local area," said Sutherland, who is also a spokeswoman for the Association of Bridal Consultants.
Referrals abound
As the first point of contact for many marrying alumni, Jaime Williams and Iris Cabatit know this firsthand.
In their posts as War Memorial Chapel manager and office services assistant respectively, the women are regularly asked about wedding service vendors.
While they don't give recommendations, Williams and Cabatit do hand out a reference and referral guide.
Filled with lists of florists, photographers, musicians and reception facilities, the guide helps couples navigate a community they often left years ago.
"I would say every couple who gets married here probably gets at least one of their wedding service providers from our referral list," Williams said.
"Some people may come in and know what officiant they want, but not know what florist or musicians they want."
Carrie Bowden used the list to find several of the vendors she will use when she and her husband renew their vows with a $10,000 ceremony and reception in January.
The fact that the guide is available online proved particularly helpful for the Radford alumna, because she has done some of her planning from Iraq.
Bowden, a first lieutenant in the Army, was deployed while in the midst of her wedding planning, but didn't let her location stop her.
"I did a lot of research before I deployed so that made it a lot easier," Bowden wrote in an e-mail. "I had all the plans in my head. It really isn't too hard to plan from afar if you are already familiar with the area and you exhaust all of your resources."
Garden director Holly Scoggins said garden staff also field a lot of vendor queries and are working on a guide of their own.
"We don't provide anything as far as accoutrements go -- you get the garden and the building," said Scoggins, who is also an associate professor of horticulture. "They have to rent everything, secure a caterer and everything else, so that's definitely an economic impact for the area."
Because he doesn't market his services specifically to Blacksburg, Roanoke photographer David Lee Michaels said being in the chapel's guide has helped throw a fair amount of business his way.
Despite the distance, Michaels travels to Blacksburg at least a couple of times a month, often to shoot weddings.
"Tech is such a wonderful facility, both in the chapel and on campus, to photograph that you welcome those kinds of opportunities," the studio owner said. "It was a nice surprise to have that business come my way and come my way in the amount that it has."
While Michaels has done just a couple of on-campus weddings so far this year, Carol Lee Cakes owner Sherree Surface said that of the two or three cakes she decorates each Saturday, at least one will make its way to school grounds.
"This weekend I have two going to the Inn at Virginia Tech," Surface said in mid-July. "They must do a pretty brisk business because I noticed one of the cakes I'm doing in the morning and the other, I'm delivering four hours later."
Surface said wedding cakes make up about half of her business, and she's noticed that the number of cakes she sends to Tech has increased substantially since the Inn at Virginia Tech opened last year.
New facilities are a draw
Our Daily Bread owner Karen Iannaccone has also noticed an increase.
Years ago, she said, "there just weren't that many facilities on campus to use."
Now, there's not only the Inn, but also the newly opened Peggy Lee Hahn Garden Pavilion.
From May through October, Our Daily Bread bakes four to six wedding cakes a week. One or two of those are usually delivered to Tech's campus.
The bakery's wedding cakes are so popular that, especially in the summer, Iannaccone has had to turn some brides and grooms away. And starting in the fall, the bakery will take orders for just two cakes a weekend.
This wedding season has also proved to be a busy one for Best Wishes Flowers & Gifts.
On a recent Friday morning, Best Wishes owner Karen Handel and eight of her employees gathered in the back room of the Blacksburg floral shop.
Dressed in blue aprons, the women stood surrounded by flowers: red roses, pink roses, confetti roses, Gerber daisies, miniature calla lilies, carnations.
On the door to the shop's cooler, a handwritten grid described nine area weddings Best Wishes would serve that weekend -- two of them at the Tech chapel.
The upcoming weekend, Handel admitted, was busier than most: to prepare she'd had to order 1,500 roses.
Usually in the summer, the florist will provide arrangements for four or five weddings a weekend.
Handel wouldn't say how many weddings Best Wishes does each year, but said an increasing number are on-campus.
"We get a good amount that are Tech alumni, so it seems to be a nostalgic place for them to meet up for their wedding, as well as a place where all the families can converge on since they're quite familiar with the area," she said.
And of course, that's good for business.
Waskey, a contract and pricing analyst, estimates she's spent $30,000 to $35,000 thus far. A hefty amount of that will likely go to businesses in Blacksburg.
And she's glad it will.
The town, the bride said, is a place "where you can have all the wonderful things you normally see at a wedding, but it's much more affordable in comparison to Malibu and Arlington."
"With Virginia Tech," she added, "we have no worries about going over $40,000."
