Raphael Stevens

The average cost of a wedding in 2023 is expected to be $29,000, up from $28,000 in 2022, according to wedding planning platform Zola.
While the 2022 wedding boom is now winding down, a survey of vendors found 77% are raising their prices this year because of inflation.
Catering and other services that are labor-intensive are seeing stiff increases, according to one wedding planner.

Thomas Barwick | Digitalvision | Getty Images

The explosive wedding boom seen last year is winding down, but the average cost of nuptials is still going up, according to new data from Zola. 
Couples will shell out an average of $29,000 this year to say “I do” – up from $28,000 last year, the digital wedding planning platform found. In 2019, before the Covid pandemic created a congested wedding market, that number was closer to $24,700.

The expected jump is in large part because of the rising, inflationary costs that vendors are facing, the company said. 
In a January survey of about 300 wedding vendors, 83% reported the cost to run their business will increase in 2023, 26% reported the cost of goods have gone up and 17% said couples have smaller budgets for services.
More than 77% of vendors surveyed said they raised rates for 2023.
Emma Dykstra, the office manager of family-run Deborah’s Specialty Cakes in Athens, Georgia, said supplier costs have in some cases “tripled or worse,” forcing her team to raise prices twice in the last year. 
“We’ve had to kind of adjust for that, and then also we want to make sure we pay our employees as well so we’ve had to up their hourly rates” said Dykstra, whose mom started the bakery. “That translates to slightly higher costs for the customer.” 

The bakery has had to raise prices by about a third or more, she said, which she says is leading more customers to shop elsewhere. Dykstra estimated that before costs jumped, one in 10 customers would take their business elsewhere because of pricing concerns — now she estimates it’s closer to one in five or one in six.
“We haven’t raised our price in ages and we hate having to do that because we really want to be as accessible to people as possible, but we’re definitely having to cater to a higher income clientele,” she said. 
Couples held more than 2.6 million weddings in the U.S. last year, according to Emily Forrest, Zola’s director of communications. That number is coming down in 2023 as backlogs related to the Covid pandemic start to clear. 
To mitigate rising costs, Forrest said she’s seeing more couples forgo typical traditions, shop on the secondhand market or even opt for a weekday or morning celebration.
“They’re really very eyes open about what the cost of a wedding is and what decisions they need to make that fit their personal style and fit the day that they’ve maybe been thinking about for a long time,” she said.
Paige Thom, co-founder and lead planner of Weddings by Leigh, a Las Vegas-based wedding planning service, said she isn’t seeing many couples cut their budgets but noted many are far more focused on the value of services than they were in the past. 
Thom said couples are increasingly asking questions like, “What services am I getting? How much time am I getting? What is really the best bang for the buck right now?”
“What am I getting for this and is it worth it?” 
Catering costs and other labor-intensive services are a particular pain point, Thom said, as vendors raise wages to support workers.
“Florals or installations or anything that’s really decor-heavy that requires extra labor on site, those costs are rising dramatically,” she said.
“Everyone’s kind of feeling the hurt — rent, groceries and gas — so if you’re trying to keep a team, just like we are, you’re giving raises,” she continued. “The idea of cheap labor isn’t really a thing anymore.”

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Walmart and Home Depot’s outlooks preview a tougher year for the retail industry.
The retail giants shared cautious full-year guidance that disappointed some investors.
Mall players, such as Macy’s and Nordstrom, may be in an even tougher spot.

If you want to know how this year may be for the retail industry, look no further than Walmart’s cautious outlook.
The discounter easily topped expectations for the holiday quarter on Tuesday, but it gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for the year ahead. Home Depot issued similar guidance. The home improvement retailer, which also reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday, said it is planning for flat same-store sales, as stubborn inflation and climbing interest rates cause consumers to watch their spending.

Home Depot’s shares slid Tuesday morning, while Walmart’s were effectively flat, as they foreshadowed the emerging theme: consumers are becoming harder to win over.
At Walmart, that means shoppers are buying more necessities like groceries and lightbulbs rather than big-ticket items or discretionary items like electronics and home decor. At Home Depot, it could mean customers may delay a home project or opt for cheaper floor tiles or kitchen appliances.
Home Depot Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said inflation is influencing customers’ decisions.
“We’ve seen an increasing degree of price sensitivity as the year’s gone on, which is actually sort of what we predicted in the face of persistent inflation,” McPhail told CNBC.
Walmart factored challenging dynamics into its full-year forecast, said John David Rainey, the company’s CFO. Those include the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes and consumers’ lower savings rates and shakier balance sheets.

“We find ourselves in a similar situation to one that we’ve been in for the last several years where there’s a lot of unknowns,” he said on a call with CNBC.

Walmart and Home Depot’s advantages

On an investor call, Rainey called food inflation “the most stubborn of all the categories.” He said that Walmart expects that shift away from higher-margin general merchandise goods and toward lower-margin categories like food ” to get a little bit worse” in the coming months.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said on an investor call, however, that the big-box retailer is in a fortunate spot, regardless of the economy. He said the business, which sells everything from toothpaste to furniture, is “naturally hedged.”
“If customers want more of something and less of something else we shift our inventory,” he said. “If the economy is strong, our customers have more money and that’s great. If things are tougher, they come to us for value.”
It has picked up customers across income levels – including those who make more than $100,000 — at Sam’s Club and at Walmart’s SuperCenters, he said. Nearly 60% of its annual revenue comes from grocery, a category that drives foot traffic and is recession-proof.
And, he said, as they shop at Walmart’s stores or try its curbside pickup or delivery services, the company hopes it will “result in them choosing us, even as inflation eventually subsides.”
Home Depot’s McPhail said the company’s customers are typically homeowners with stable jobs and healthier finances. Plus, he said, as mortgage rates rise, some are choosing to fix up their current homes rather than buy new ones.
Another dynamic that could work for Home Depot? It sells items that people may see as necessities, such as supplies to fix a broken water heater or a washer/dryer that a family may be forced to replace.
Other retailers are likely in a tougher position. Many mall players, such as Macy’s and Nordstrom, skew toward discretionary goods like apparel, handbags and shoes. Those two companies already warned investors about their holiday results. The companies are scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings next week.

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Blumhouse is launching a video game division to create horror-themed projects for consoles, PCs and mobile devices.
The company, known for hits like “Get Out,” will focus on partnering with independent game developers and investing in low-budget games.

Ethan Hawke stars in Blumhouse and Universal’s “The Black Phone.”

The world of video games is about to get scarier.
Blumhouse, the powerhouse horror movie and TV production company, said Tuesday that it is launching Blumhouse Games.

“For some time we have been looking to build out a team to start accessing the growth opportunity in interactive media,” said Abhijay Prakash, president of Blumhouse. “When we sat with Zach and Don they articulated an approach that resonated with Blumhouse’s model and we knew it was a perfect place for us to start our push into the interactive space.”
Blumhouse Games will partner with independent game developers and target indie-budget games of under $10 million. This is a similar strategy to how the company handles its filmed content production. Blumhouse typically operates under small production budgets and then sees large gains at the box office.
The company has revolutionized the horror genre in the last decade, turning small budget flicks into huge box-office hits. The studio has been responsible for the profitable and popular “Paranormal Activity” films as well as the Academy Award-winning “Get Out.”
“Paranormal Activity,” which was released in 2009, had a budget of just $15,000 and went on to make more than $107 million in the U.S. and nearly $200 million worldwide.
The company plans to invest in horror-themed games for consoles, PCs and mobile devices.

To lead Blumhouse Games, the company tapped video game industry veterans Zach Woods as the group’s president and Don Sechler as chief financial officer.
Wood has been a video game producer for more than 25 years and published games on every platform including Game Boy, Playstation and Xbox. He has worked on indie projects like “Sound Shapes” and “Hohokum” as well as bigger projects like “Prey: Mooncrash” and “Redfall” for Arkane and Bethesda.
Sechler, who will head the finance department, has previously worked for Sony and helped reform PlayStation’s relationship with third party game creators.
Blumhouse is also working to merge with “The Conjuring” director James Wan’s Atomic Monster production company. The deal is expected to close this summer.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal has a distribution deal with Blumhouse.

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Spring break prices are rising as travelers return to pre-pandemic bookings.
Travelers can save hundreds of dollars if they avoid popular travel days like holidays and Sunday return flights.
Airlines have said late aircraft deliveries and pilot shortages have limited their ability to grow, keeping fares high.

People gather on a beach in Miami, Florida, U.S., on Saturday, March 5, 2021.
Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Spring break travel demand is picking up, driving up airfare and hotel rates.
Travel app Hopper said in a report last week that domestic airfare is averaging $264 a round trip for March and April, up 20% from a year ago and 5% above pre-pandemic levels.

Airlines, grappling with pilot shortages and aircraft delivery delays, have already limited capacity growth, which is keeping airfare up from last year.
Now travelers are going back to booking patterns common before the pandemic, flying on peak days to traditional destinations, airline executives say. That makes it even more important for travelers to stay flexible if they’re trying to save money to avoid spikes in fares.
It’s good news for airlines that are trying to make up for higher costs.
Spring break demand is “probably the best we’ve ever seen,” Frontier Airlines CEO Barry Biffle said in an interview. “Constrained capacity is real. When you couple that in with higher costs, most notably fuel, people are willing to pay [the higher fares], and the airlines need to charge it.”
Matt Klein, Spirit Airlines’ chief commercial officer, told CNBC that there was a travel lull following the new year, when schools reopened after a longer-than-usual holiday break, but demand has perked up for trips through the spring, even beyond peak holiday weeks.

“The busiest days of the week are returning to your Fridays and Sundays,” Klein said in an interview. “The best deals and the best offers should be on Tuesdays and Wednesdays would be my expectation.”
But midweek during popular vacation periods, like when schools are off, could keep demand high all week, he added. “People will move around for the best opportunity,” he said.
Klein said that demand to Florida is particularly strong and that Spirit has boosted capacity to certain cities such as Orlando, where it’s ramped up service to hit a near-record 96 daily departures on peak days.
“There are deals available, but what consumers might not want to hear is that they’ll have to be flexible,” said Hayley Berg, Hopper’s lead economist. She recommended looking at alternative destinations to some of the most popular places and book outside of the more traditional depart on a Thursday or Friday and return on a Sunday plan.
For example, a Spirit flight from Detroit to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is selling for $411.78 before fees, such as seat selection or cabin baggage, from April 7-16, while a shorter April 8-15 trip was $233.78.
A flight from New York to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic is going for $1,691.25 for standard economy on JetBlue from April 10-14. For the same trip leaving and returning a day earlier that falls to $1,392.25.
This is the first U.S. spring break season since the Biden administration scrapped a requirement that travelers show proof of a negative Covid test before flying to the U.S., making it easier for some people to travel abroad, while capacity remains limited.
Hopper said roundtrip flights to Mexico and Central America from the U.S. are up 60% from last year and 30% from 2019 at $536 in March and April. Fares from the U.S. to Caribbean islands are averaging $433, up 38% from last year and 9% from 2019, while roundtrips to Europe are averaging $706, up 45% from 2022 and 16% higher than four years ago.
“It’s not like a wedding. You’ve got some flexibility on where to go,” Scott Keyes, founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights, a flight deal site that the company recently renamed Going. “If cheap flights are a priority, see where there are cheap flights and then decide on your destination.”

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Walmart on Tuesday topped holiday-quarter earnings expectations.
The big-box retailer gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for the year ahead.
Walmart’s CFO said shoppers are still buying fewer discretionary items, as grocery prices remain elevated.

Customers exit a Walmart store on January 24, 2023 in Miami, Florida. Walmart announced that it is raising its minimum wage for store employees in early March, store employees will make between $14 and $19 an hour. 
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Walmart on Tuesday topped holiday-quarter earnings expectations, as the discounter said it drew budget-conscious shoppers searching for food, gifts and household items at a lower price.
But shares slid in premarket trading, after the big-box retailer gave a weaker-than-expected outlook for the year ahead.

The company said it expects same-store sales for Walmart U.S. to rise between 2% and 2.5% excluding fuel, in the fiscal year ahead. That’s below analysts’ expectations for 3% growth, according to StreetAccount. It anticipates adjusted earnings per share to range from $5.90 to $6.05, excluding fuel.

Walmart CFO John David Rainey told CNBC shoppers are still buying fewer discretionary items, as grocery prices remain elevated. He said that factored into Walmart’s predictions for the year ahead.
“The consumer is still very pressured,” he said. “And if you look at economic indicators, balance sheets are running thinner and savings rates are declining relative to previous periods. And so that’s why we take a pretty cautious outlook on the rest of the year.”
Home Depot, which also reported fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday morning, also shared a softer outlook. It said it expects same-store sales to be approximately flat in the coming fiscal year.
Here’s what Walmart reported for the fiscal fourth quarter that ended Jan. 31, according to Refinitiv consensus estimates:

Earnings per share: $1.71, adjusted, vs. $1.51 expected
Revenue: $164.05 billion vs. $159.72 billion expected

Walmart reported a net income of $6.28 billion, or $2.32, up from $3.56 billion, or $1.28, a year earlier. 
Revenue of $164 billion marked a 7.3% year-over-year increase.
Same-store sales for Walmart U.S. rose 8.3%, excluding fuel. The key industry metric that includes sales from stores and clubs open for at least a year. E-commerce sales jumped by 17% year over year for Walmart U.S.
At Sam’s Club, same-store sales rose 12.2%, excluding fuel.
The company is not only the nation’s largest retailer. It’s also a grocery powerhouse, a factor that has steadied sales and driven foot traffic as Americans watch the budget because of high inflation. 
Walmart’s reputation for value has helped the retailer – as has its large grocery business. It is the largest grocer in the country by revenue. The prices of those groceries has attracted new customers across income levels.
In the holiday quarter, Walmart’s share gains also came from lower- and middle-income shoppers
Walmart has made progress with a headache that has plagued many retailers: A glut of unsold goods that piled up in store backrooms and wound up on clearance racks. Inventory is roughly flat with a year ago, Rainey said, and is down 3% for Walmart U.S.
Shares of Walmart closed on Friday at $146.44, bringing the company’s market cap to nearly $395 billion. The company’s shares are up about 3% so far this year, underperforming the S&P 500’s approximately 6% gain during the same period.

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United Airlines and five corporate partners are investing $100 million to launch a fund backing sustainable aviation fuel.
Joining United are Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell.
United will allow some customers to donate to the fund in exchange for 500 United MileagePlus frequent flyer miles.

A United Airlines passenger plane takes off from Frankfurt Airport. The airport, which is operated by fraport, is one of the most important hubs in Europe.
Jana Glose | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

United Airlines and five corporate partners are launching a venture capital fund to invest in startup firms and technology developing and expanding the availability of sustainable aviation fuel, commonly referred to as SAF. 
The United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund will start with $100 million invested by United Airlines, Air Canada, Boeing, GE Aerospace, JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell.

The announcement comes as the aviation industry pushes to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet more restrictive pollution standards.
“This fund is unique. It’s not about offsets or things that are just greenwashing. Instead, we’re creating a system that drives investment to build a new industry around sustainable aviation fuel, essentially from scratch,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in a release announcing the fund. 
SAF, which is made using feedstocks that include used cooking oil and agricultural waste, is widely viewed as the aviation industry’s best option for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. The challenge is figuring out how to increase the supply of SAF while lowering the cost. 
Currently, the supply of SAF is limited and it is typically two to four times more expensive than jet fuel. As a result, airlines looking to cut their greenhouse gas emissions face two hurdles. Many airports do not have a steady, readily available supply of SAF to fuel planes. And if they do, the cost is considerably higher than using jet fuel. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed last year by President Joe Biden, includes a blended fuels tax credit as an incentive for the development and use of SAF.
The United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund will allow United and the other inaugural investors the chance to play a larger role in startups developing and expanding access to SAF. Partners in the fund will also be eligible for access to environmental attributes that will go with United’s supply of SAF.

Since becoming CEO of United Airlines in May 2020, Kirby has pushed for the development of SAF. Even as United faced substantial losses due to plunging passenger levels when the Covid pandemic devastated demand for travel, Kirby announced his airline would launch a fund to invest in future technologies and sustainability. 
Since then, United Airlines Ventures has invested in startups focused on decarbonization and new fuel sources. In announcing the United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund, Kirby reiterated his belief the path to lower emissions requires developing new ideas and technology. “That’s the only way we can decarbonize aviation,” he said.  

Getting customers involved

While the United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund is not open to retail investors, United Airlines is hoping to stoke public interest in its green initiative by allowing some customers to donate to the fund in exchange for 500 United MileagePlus frequent flyer miles. 
The airline’s offer will be extended to the first 10,000 customers who choose to donate $1, $3.50 or $7 to the fund. In addition, United is adding a new feature to its website and app that shows customers booking flights what the estimated carbon footprint is of a particular flight. The estimate will be based on aircraft type, flying time, seat capacity and how many passengers, as well as cargo, are on a particular flight. 
United points out the estimate could ultimately differ from the actual carbon footprint once a flight takes place.
How much impact could United customers make on the airline’s push to go green?  United estimates that if all 152 million passengers who flew the airline in 2022 donated $3.50 to the United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund, it would be enough money to design and build an SAF refinery capable of producing up to 40 million gallons of SAF every year.
– CNBC’s Meghan Reeder contributed to this article.

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