Smoky Mountain Wedding Chapels - Down Trend in Sevier County

More should be spent to promote Smoky wedding chapels - By: Candice Grimm of the Mountain Press. Photo from http://www.logchapel.com/

In the face of evidence that fewer couples are coming to Sevier County to marry, County Clerk Joe Keener and others are looking at ways to increase the county's wedding business, especially through more marketing efforts.

Kevin McKee, president of the Gatlinburg Association of Wedding Chapels, would like to see more money spent to promote weddings.

"For many years Gatlinburg was known as the wedding capital of the South. I think we got away from that," McKee said.

McKee cited the "trickle-down economics" of weddings and how that benefits businesses not only in Gatlinburg but the entire county."

When (Gatlinburg) is empty, there are still a lot of weddings going on," said McKee, adding that since there are nice wedding chapels all over Sevier County, he thinks the county should help with the cost of advertising. "We should brag about this place - it's romantic, it's beautiful - we should use everything we can to promote it."

Rick Joyce, owner of Cupid's Petals florist shop in Gatlinburg which does much of its business with the wedding chapels, agrees with McKee. "Overall advertising of the 'wedding capital of the South,' which we've been, has slipped. It's not touted like it used to be, and I believe that has had an impact because a lot of people are not aware of what we have to offer here."

Joyce said local officials have "all had a wake-up call that wedding numbers are sliding, and efforts are now being made to make people more aware." Gas prices are going up, and that eight-hour radius that people will drive to a destination may be down to a six-hour radius, but people will still drive here," he said.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is proposing changes to avoid conflicts between wedding parties and the general public, protect the Park's resources and help the Park to recover the costs incurred in monitoring weddings. Some in the wedding business fear it could worsen the situation, but most are upbeat about it.

Said Joyce, "We all want to work together with the Park. I see a lot of positive things out of the Park changes." He was selected to speak for the Gatlinburg Wedding Association.

Joel Ossoff, concessionaires management specialist for the Park, said, "We got positive feedback from those at a March meeting regarding the proposed regulations. Some applauded the Park for trying to grapple with this issue. Some commented on parts of the plan. In general, people were pleased with it."

"We suspect that those who have a good experience with their wedding in the Park would tell their friends, and those that have a bad experience would also tell their friends. We hope that by having better management, we'll have less conflicts. ... Hopefully, we'll be able to improve those wedding numbers," Ossoff said.

As Keener said, "If we could still be at 18,000 (the number of weddings in the county in 1997), we would be OK."


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