Following fireworks in Vail, Beaver Creek and Gypsum, there’s no wrong way to ring in the new year in our valley. While there are plenty of extravagant ways to close out 2023, there are also places.
Donovan Pavilion/Special to the Daily
Love is one of Eagle County’s underappreciated economic drivers. Specifically, people who get married bring bunches of guests and money every summer.
The wedding business took a COVID-mandated break in 2020. This wedding season roughly June through October is already busy, between canceled events from 2020 and ceremonies that were planned for this year. keeps a close eye on state and national trends. Moore said that in the couple of years before the pandemic, the U.S. saw roughly 2 million weddings per year. For 2022, that number is expected to surpass 3 million.
There’s plenty of local business this summer, but there are only so many venues, caterers, musicians and officiants to go around.
In a brief bout of unprecedented innocence during the third week of last March, we sat back on our collective backsides (or couches for some) and watched the world come to an almost complete halt.
Markets crashed, businesses shut their doors, store shelves emptied, I-70 traffic became nonexistent, and most glaring around here – the ski mountains closed, while we were left staring at each other, thinking, “What the hell do we do now?”
My wife and I had just returned from skiing in Snowbird and visiting family in Utah, listening intently to news reports all the way home, beginning to finally believe there might really be something to the whole COVID thing.