Coronavirus shutdown hurting events, wedding industry

On a typical spring Monday afternoon, it isn't likely to find Don McDougal tooling around his garage working on little projects around the house.

It is also unlikely to know that the weekend before, nobody but the Grand Tradition Estate and Garden's grounds crew and a few assorted staff even set foot on the 30-acre property that McDougal's home overlooks.

About the only thing happening at one of the most popular wedding and events venue in the region is some minor projects due to the coronavirus pandemic and orders handed down from county and state officials.

"We've been shut down since early March and we've had to postpone all of our March weddings and now we postponed all of our weddings and receptions and special events through April," McDougal said. "At this point, we haven't canceled anybody. We've postponed. And so what we're doing is trying to move primarily brides and grooms, 90% of our business is weddings and receptions. So we've moved those in later in the year and into next year. We've tried to move him into this year, but, we just don't have available dates.

"So, from that standpoint, we've got a business with no revenue coming in at this point in time. Hopefully, May 1, if this opens back up, we've got a lot of brides and grooms that are anxious to see whether it's going to open up or not and we'll be able to go back at it."

With 84 employees at the Grand Tradition, it is one of the largest employers in the town. McDougal said they've had to furlough some of them. He said he is hoping to get the payroll protection funding from the government.

"The bank gave me the option of delaying the application for a few weeks and doing it toward the tail end," he said. "I said, I'd rather get the money in my hand now, and it could run out and not have anything."

He said he is hoping to have that money in the next week or so.

"That will allow us to bring all of our staff back on as far as on the payroll, whether we have jobs (for them to do) or not," he said. "We're trying to get everybody to work 24 hours, and then we're trying to stagger all the work shifts so that we can still maintain social distancing. All of our administrative staff, our sales department, coordinating department and marketing are all working remotely from home.

"As far as our kitchen and banquet staff and so on, we'll bring them back on the payroll hoping that this thing kicks back in the first of the first of May.

"We're trying to take care of all of our staff and keep them on the payroll and we're also offering a financial program where if they need financial assistance, we'll help them get through until they can get back on.

"A thing has been tough for a lot of the employees is they have kids and the kids are out of school, so they've gotta be able to be with their kids so they in some cases can't work. And so we're giving them the option of either coming back to work or staying on unemployment, depending on what works the best for them," he said.

In addition, the Veranda restaurant on the property is closed, McDougal said they aren't set up for takeout.

And the damage extends past the venue grounds. There are possible hundreds of other people that rely on the venue to make a living. Wedding planners, coordinators, caterers, DJs, photographers and others depend on the revenue they generate for a wedding or special event on the property.

"Now you've got food service distributors and you've got the, their suppliers, you've got farmers that are raising produce," McDougal said. "And so it's not a matter of just turning the switch and everything's going to go right back to normal. It's going to take some time to ramp up in a number of these areas. I know in our coordinating staff that are calling and rescheduling, one of the concerns that everybody has is they've got to check and make sure your photographers will be available, your florist will be available, the bakery will be available. There's a lot of coordinating that has to be done on it."

In addition to weddings and special events, the property also hosts groups like rotary clubs and women's groups each week. That revenue is just gone.

In the meantime, McDougal said they have worked on a couple of projects on the property, including replacing parts of the roof.

"Fortunately, we got it done before the rain came," he said. "That was one of those things that is very difficult for us to do during here when we've got events going on. We can't do those garden projects and some specialty projects that we're working on."

All in all, McDougal seemed calm about the situation, although disappointed.

"It's an unfortunate thing, whoever would've thought something like this in our lifetime would happen?" McDougal said. "We have to make the best of it."

Jeff Pack can be reached by email at [email protected].