The wedding industry has been one of the hardest hit by provincial COVID-19 restrictions, and vendors say so far they have been offered no provisions.

Under the Manitoba Bridge Grant, announced earlier this month, small businesses were eligible for a lump sum payment of 5 thousand dollars to get them through the challenging times. In all of that, it seems players in the wedding industry were not even considered. That, at least, is the complaint of Brenton Thompson, owner of Summer Bounce Entertainment and Tentation Tent Rentals in Steinbach.

“To say ‘sorry, but you don’t count’ is a public slap in the face,” seethes Thompson. “It’s rude, it’s hurtful, it’s disrespectful, and it's just not right.”

To wedding venues across the province coming out of their least profitable season ever, Thompson says the grant program initially looked like a “glimmer of hope” that would help them cover outlying insurance costs and pay outstanding bills.

“We haven’t been making money all summer and this is supposed to be a lifeline,” he says, “but we are putting our hand out now only to get it smacked away.”

As a business owner who has patiently been abiding by the latest restrictions and protocols and even advising starry-eyed couples accordingly, Thompson says the omission is insulting.

“We’re made to feel as though we are not real,” he states. “A photographer who is in our industry, or a DJ or an entertainer, they’re being treated as though this is a hobby.”

And for some, maybe it is a hobby, maybe they do take photos of their friends getting married for fun, Thompson says he understands that but stresses that there are also many full-time professionals that are falling through the cracks. Perhaps nobody knows that perspective better than Charmaine Toews.

As both a local photographer and the director of Manitoba's chapter of the National Board for the Professional Photographers of Canada, Toews has her finger on the pulse of what her contemporaries are feeling.

“There are a lot of wedding photographers that have really taken a huge hit this year with their income and it has been very hard on a lot of them," she says. "If they aren’t able to get this assistance right now it puts them in a tough spot going into 2021.”

To qualify for the Manitoba Bridge Grant a business needs to meet certain requirements. Among the criteria, an eligible business needs to operate out of a specific retail location. Toews believes that is the clause that effectively eliminated the entire wedding industry. However, she is hoping it is just an oversight.

“For a lot of photographers, this is their only source of income. They are running legitimate small businesses and they shouldn’t be ignored. I have confidence the government will do the right thing and relook at the grant program.”

To follow up their grievances with the system with action, Toews and Thompson have joined a larger group of professionals now lobbying the province to add wedding and event businesses to their list of grant beneficiaries. Letters have been sent to elected officials on local and provincial levels of government asking them to extend their supports to those suffering in an industry that is supposed to be characterized by happiness and love.