At first, Shanel Carter was looking forward to the wedding season. The pandemic was winding down, her best friends were getting hitched and she was ready to celebrate.

Then, the invitations kept coming.

“My excitement morphed into dread and anxiety,” said Carter, 34, who has already been to two weddings in 2021 and plans to go to four more in the next year, plus three bachelorette parties and two bridal showers. She recently backed out of a seventh wedding. “I had to turn down a bridal shower, I had to turn down a bachelorette, because I’m in the process of buying a home, and so money was the first thing that crossed my mind.”

She’s budgeting for weddings in Barbados, Charleston, Chicago and New Orleans, and bachelorettes in the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, and estimates it’ll all cost about $9,000. And that’s before extra meals, outfits, out-of-pocket expenses while traveling and the time off from work that she has to request.

As the pandemic abates, couples who got engaged during Covid-19 lockdowns are planning to tie the knot, and weddings that were postponed in 2020 are moving forward. Marriages in the U.S. are set to rebound by more than 50% this year after slumping about 40% in 2020, according to data from The Wedding Report, an industry research firm. The rising trend is expected to persist into next year, when almost 2.5 million weddings are expected—the most since 1984.

To be sure, large swathes of the population are still reeling from the economic devastation sparked by the pandemic and related lockdowns, leaving many couples without the means to have a wedding celebration, even if they wanted to. And even as Covid vaccines are being administered, and economic activity has picked up and white-collar workers return to their offices, millions of Americans still remain unemployed—reflecting a myriad of factors including child care challenges and lingering coronavirus concerns.

But for those couples who can afford it, the excitement of finally being able to get hitched is providing the impetus for grand plans. That means potentially more expenses for their guests—who might have to spend thousands of dollars on travel, lodging, gifts to attend a slew of events: bachelorette and bachelor weekends, bridal showers and engagement parties.

A third of bridal party members took on debt for a friend’s wedding, according to a survey by online lending marketplace LendingTree. Those that went into debt included 43% of maids of honor, 38% of best men, 35% of bridesmaids and 30% of groomsmen, the survey found. Bachelor and bachelorette parties, wedding attire, travel to and from the marriage were some of the biggest expenses.

The number of wedding websites published on The Knot in June 2021 was 48% more than the same month in 2019. Gift purchases on The Knot Registry, meanwhile, more than doubled in the second quarter of this year compared to the first three months of 2021. Couples are also inviting more people—there were seven times as many invitation purchases in June, compared with March.

“Many of the weddings from last year that rescheduled moved to this year, and if you layer on top of that those that typically get married in a year, that’s what you really see as the surge,” said Shane McMurray, founder of The Wedding Report. “I think next year will be more of a surge than this year.”

Historically, it wasn’t the wedding couple that would dictate where the bridal shower, bachelor and bachelorette parties were held, according to Jodi Smith, an etiquette consultant. Instead, attendees would get together, set a budget and plan the event. But things have now changed. Guests need to review their budget and speak honestly, Smith said.

“What’s changed is the scale and scope,” Smith said. “Couples need to take that into consideration that there’s a chance their friends or relatives will say no to being at their wedding because they simply can’t afford to attend and spending money on somebody is not equivalent with friendship. I shouldn’t have to prove that I’m friends with you by going into debt.”

Even in the wealthiest enclaves, some venues are trying to lure in brides and their guests with deals. On any given weekend night at Calissa, a Greek restaurant in the Hamptons, brides-to-be celebrate their final bit of time before entering matrimony. The venue has seen so much demand from bachelorette parties that earlier this summer it began limiting reservations to 50 people for such events.

Brooke Baldinger, 30, went to Calissa to celebrate a friend’s bachelorette in early June. At $650 for the weekend, she said it was cheaper than what she’s spent before when some of her best friends were getting married.

In the next year, Baldinger has eight marriages to attend, three of which require pre-wedding events: engagement parties, bachelorettes and bridal showers. During the summer, when prices tend to be higher, she has to go to three weddings—in Connecticut, upstate New York and Vermont. She’s predicting a $5,000 budget for hotels, car reservations and trains.

The pre-wedding parties alone can cost guests as much or more than attending the actual weddings. Shravan Malaney, 29, has eight weddings to go to this year and two bachelor parties. On top of the travel, there’s the cost of the Airbnb and any activities and meals.

Those “can add up pretty significantly,” Malaney said. He’s expecting to spend $1,000 on the bachelor parties and another $4,200 on all the weddings.

“Now that I’m tallying up these numbers, I’m like ‘holy sh-t, I’m spending a lot of money on weddings,’” he said. “I don’t know how my body’s going to handle it for the next two years.”

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.