FEBRUARY 2021

Bringing Back Romance
Weddings Require Creativity Amid COVID
BY PAUL NATINSKY
As people adjust to life under
COVID, lived at home, outdoors,
in small groups, masked
and spaced, the pandemic’s effects
push into cultural events for many
communities. For Chaldean brides and
grooms, family and wedding professionals,
change has been difficult.
Accustomed to 400- and 500-person
gatherings with lavish food, festive
music and loads of tradition, the
Chaldean community is adjusting to
smaller weddings, outdoor and home
events, and a backlog of postponed
nuptials.
“I started to realize that you don’t
have to have a 400- or 500-person
wedding to have the wedding of your
dreams. You can still have a small,
intimate wedding and still have an
amazing time,” said Jon Elias, better
known as The Pastry Guru.
COVID Inspires Creativity
Elias is sort of a one-man show, making
wedding cakes and creating dessert
stations. Until early 2020, wedding
business took up all of his time. Elias
has a degree from culinary school.
He worked at high-end restaurants
around Michigan before transitioning
to his wedding dessert venture. With
wedding business screeching to a halt
in 2020, Elias began accepting preorders
for holidays, including Father’s
Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas and
Thanksgiving. He never expected he
would have time for such sidelines,
but now thinks he will continue with
the expanded offerings.
Event Planners Andrew Keina
and business partner Lawrence Yaldo
turned to “pop-up” events to fill the
revenue gap until they can get back
to their core wedding-planning activities.
The pair, who connected
about fifteen years ago and own Top
That Table, teamed with Elias on
Mother’s Day to provide flower arrangements
with Elias’ cheesecakes.
Keina and Yaldo are no strangers
to working beyond weddings. Top
That Table takes on a variety of large
and small events, including baby
showers, first birthday parties and
providing seasonal decorations for a
West Bloomfield mall for the past decade.
Still, the increase in spontaneous
opportunities is a stop-gap measure
to pay the bills until large events
again become possible.
A Steady Hand
Dalia Attisha found herself working
hard to keep a cool head and present
a reassuring face to her clients. After
finding her calling in event planning
through experience with her father’s
Chaldean community newspaper,
chamber of commerce work and a
degree in business and interior design,
she spent the past twenty years
calming couples and providing expert
help to ensure their big day is a
great experience.
In 2020, that mission stretched to
its limits.
“The biggest challenge was that
planning one wedding became planning
three weddings,” said Attisha.
“The date, budget and guestbook
would change. The ideas would change
in so many different ways. And then,
something else would come up.
“That was the biggest challenge,
because as an event planner, people
are looking to us for advice, for guidance,
and really this was our first
pandemic. They’re looking to us for
answers and we don’t have answers.”
Attisha likened her 2020 experience
to being a flight attendant on
an extremely turbulent flight. The
first person the passengers look to is
the flight attendant, and that person
must control their own stress to keep
everyone calm.
Event venues and vendors have
been compassionate, said Attisha.
She said vendors are waiving fees for
date changes and cancellations and
making deposits transferable, something
that, pre-COVID, could have
cost a couple as much as $500.
Still, the stress is there for everyone
involved in weddings—planners,
couples, families. Adding to the tension
is the scarcity of dates available
in 2021. With restrictions still in
place at press time and several months
of cold weather ahead, the backlog
created in 2020 continues to grow,
pushing those who would have married
this year to push back to 2022.
Backlogs & Adjustments
Popular wedding venue Regency Manor
Banquet Center in Southfield is
feeling the effects of that backlog and
doesn’t see immediate relief in sight.
“The first quarter of 2021 still
18 CHALDEAN NEWS FEBRUARY 2021