I've seen a number of posts complaining about vendors increasing prices for postponing to next year, particularly venues. I just wanted to make a post highlighting some of the potential reasons why venues may be increasing their prices.
Note: I'm not a vendor. I run a non wedding-related venue (theatre space) and have spent many years working for restaurants. I think I have an interesting perspective wrt serving food and managing space.
First, the extra costs of just running a space. We're planning to add at least six sanitization stations in our two theatres, which will include: a small table, hand sanitizer, kleenex and a garbage bin with a liner and lid. Cleaning services will need to increase, and all cleaning staff will have PPE. This will include: masks, face shields, gloves, and coveralls. It's the employer's responsibility to provide this stuff. In addition to the costs of sanitization stations and additional PPE for cleaning staff, chances are venues will also need additional staff to ensure physical distancing is being respected. This is just the beginning of what venues will have to do.
We will need to purchase UV sanitizers (at a few hundred dollars each) or steamers to clean all our seats. When a venue may have to do this 2-3 times per weekend, it adds a huge amount of staff hours. UV sanitizers take 2-3 minutes per area and if you have to do a few hundred chairs between events, that's a LOT of time spent.
For food service, it gets even more complicated. If you're planning a buffet or family-style, I suggest you revisit your plans. These options are cheaper because guests share food service items - serving spoons, tongs, etc. No more hors d'oeuvres stations - they'll all likely have to be passed, with the servers placing the food item on each guest's plate/napkin. This will require more serving staff. Self-serve punch? Nope. (There's a video out there from Japan showing 10 people at a buffet where they used UV paint to show how many people got "germs" on them after 30 minutes. It was enlightening. https://www.delish.com/food-news/a32493785/black-light-restaurant-experiment/)
Dishwashing. This is something no one ever thinks about. Have you ever been in a restaurant's dish washing area? Spray is EVERYWHERE! I'm not sure how restaurants and food venues are going to deal with it, but it's a major problem when trying to limit the amount of germs flying through the air. It's possible that dishware and flatware will all be disposable ($&dollar
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Food costs are DEFINITELY going to go up. There are already shortages and I'm not sure how much worse it's going to get. This is an excellent article by a Calgary brew pub on the challenges of a restaurant opening: https://www.prairiedogbrewing.ca/challenges-reopening-restaurant-covid-19/ (it's kinda long, but worth the read).
Now, I'm not trying to be alarmist, but I am pragmatic. "Hope for the best and plan for the worst" kind of thinking. Venues are trying to set their pricing rapidly with EXTREMELY limited information. Think about how much things have changed just in the past couple of months. Now try to plan for a year from now without losing money on every contract. Now do that while knowing that you're not going to make any money this year. No, it's not the couple's fault that everything's gone haywire, but nor is it the vendor's fault. And I'm not saying there aren't vendors out there who aren't treating their clients badly, because there are. I guess I just made this post to offer a bit of insight that your average bride and groom might not know about. Thanks for coming to my TED talk 
