Asheville Reboot

How Asheville’s Wedding Industry Rebounded After Hurricane Helene | Anna Britt, Asheville Weddings & Events

• Brian Hamrick • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

Send us a text

When Hurricane Helene struck Western North Carolina, wedding planner Anna Britt of Asheville Weddings & Events
found herself caught between devastated venues, stranded couples, and an industry on pause.

In this episode, Anna joins host Alex Jarbo at Engadine Inn & Cabins to share how she navigated canceled ceremonies, rescheduled celebrations, and the emotional toll of rebuilding her business after the storm.

Anna reflects on:

  • What it was like losing all communication during the hurricane
  • How couples and vendors adapted in the aftermath
  • The comeback of Asheville’s destination wedding scene
  • Why she’s optimistic heading into the new season

Whether you’re a local business owner, engaged couple, or simply inspired by stories of resilience, Anna’s perspective offers hope and a reminder that Asheville is open—and love always finds a way.

💡 Learn more: ashevilleweddingsandevents.com

🏨 Recorded at: Engadine Inn & Cabins

🌄 Connect & Learn More

🏡 Engadine Inn & Cabins
Website: www.EngadineInnAndCabins.com

Instagram: @engadineinnandcabins

Facebook: facebook.com/EngadineInnandCabins

YouTube: @EngadineInnAndCabins

🎧 Asheville Reboot Podcast
YouTube: @AshevilleReboot

Substack: ashevillereboot.substack.com

Alex Jarbo:

Hey everyone. Welcome to Asheville Reboot, a podcast that is gonna be detailing community leaders and people that are helping Western North Carolina rebuild and thrive after Hurricane Helene. I am Alex Jarbo, the owner of Engadine Inn and Cabins. Today we are joined by Anna Britt, the owner of Asheville Wedding and Events.

Anna Brit:

Hi. Yeah, so my name's Anna Britt, the owner of Asheville Weddings and Events here in Asheville, North Carolina. so I am a small business. It is solely just me that works full time for my company, contracting out other, you know, wonderful wedding planners to help me with my services. I focus mostly on destination couples coming here to get married. That tends to be the clientele that comes here to Asheville. I love my local client. Please hit me up if you're local as well. But again, Asheville is a tourist destination, so it only makes sense for most of my weddings to be destination based for my couples. Along with that, I also do events, I help plan fundraising, galas and pretty much anything along those lines I do balloons. Anything that involves a party, I'm there.

Alex Jarbo:

So we are recording this in the beginning of September, so we're coming up on the one year of the hurricane. So if you wanna go through how your business was affected by just the hurricane and what your industry saw with the hurricane and where we're at now

Anna Brit:

Yeah. So I had a pretty unique experience in what kind of happened with the hurricane. I had actually taken a week. Before,'cause we're kind of getting into the busy season, right? So I had gone down to the beach of a family beach house by myself with my dog, the week before the hurricane. And just took some time for my wedding season, got started,'cause wedding season and leave season in Asheville. Coincides and I talked to my couples on the way down there and was like, Hey, taking this week off, I'm gonna revamp and we'll get back to it. My boyfriend on Wednesday was like, Hey, you need to come back up to Asheville. Hurricane might be hitting and I was like, no. I'm gonna stay down here. it'll be fine. I'll come back up on Friday.

Alex Jarbo:

Yeah,

Anna Brit:

it's not What happened? the hurricane hit Friday morning, lost communication with everyone including Alex. sending soss and eventually got up here about three days after the hurricane hit Luckily I was able to talk to my couples before I, came back up here and I did let them know, Hey, there's no service. Cell phone towers, wifi, every power, everything's down, no water, nothing like I promised you get back to you. But like, you know, I was very transparent. I was like, I can't get ahold of your wedding venues. I can't get hold of like, anybody that up there. I pretty much fair warned them to go ahead and start. letting, you know, people know that their wedding's unfortunately, probably not going to happen.

Alex Jarbo:

Yeah. We had a bride here. I don't know if you remember that. She was, I think staying, she was doing her wedding at Chestnut. And I mean, her wedding completely canceled that weekend.

Anna Brit:

I really thought that, I remember because going into that weekend, I was so devastated for a lot of my fellow wedding planners that had weddings. And I was like, oh man, that really sucks for them and their clients. hopefully my clients will be able to get.

Alex Jarbo:

Water. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be fine.

Anna Brit:

Got up here and started understanding the gravity of the situation. And you

Alex Jarbo:

were probably seeing stuff on the news there

Anna Brit:

Which was traumatic. Yeah. Especially when you can't get ahold of anybody. Right. And you just don't know what's happening and they're telling you there's no access in or out of Asheville, and I'm sitting there GPS-ing how to get home and it's telling me like 10 hours. And I have to go through like Virginia. So yeah, that was rough. Luckily my couples were very. Understanding and very kind during the whole disaster incident. And most of the couples, rescheduled for later into November, I went and did one in Charlotte, so that was, additional travel expense I did have to, refund some people. I had couples just completely cancel and so I didn't end up receiving the second half of the payment.

Speaker 4:

Right.

Anna Brit:

And then, you know, going into the holiday season, that's when couples are getting engaged, right? And so with that, that's kind of like our busy booking season. That's when I see my most inquiries come in. That's not what happened. Luckily I was able to accrue a good amount of weddings in the back end. Kind of going into like the February season it started picking up. It's proven to be a little difficult because it's been a very short engagement period, so having to plan a lot of details for couples, right. In a very quick turnaround. But again, just thankful in general that they came.

Alex Jarbo:

Do you feel like right now, recording this in early September, almost hitting a year. Has things started to pick up at least for you now?

Anna Brit:

Yeah, I actually just over the weekend got three inquiries and most of them were for next year.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Anna Brit:

I think people are seeing a lot, of people talking about Asheville's Open. Right. which I agree there's still a lot of parts, especially the parts that I worked in like Sowan and Noah that are still focusing on the rebuild. On the rebuild. But I have to say probably commercially Asheville's doing better. Better.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Alex Jarbo:

So now looking past, say this year, going into next year, two years from now, even,'cause some people book two years out, what are you most excited about with. What's happening with our rebuild here, I hate to say the word rebuild because like I said, there are areas that are affected pretty bad, but there's also a lot of really cool things that are happening in the area. I mean, all the things that the river arts district's doing, once September one hits pumpkin spice season started and then all of the leaf season, yeah. Promotion started that I saw on Instagram, Facebook, and online and stuff through Explore Asheville. So what do you say one or two things that you're most excited about? Leading into both this leaf season, but also say next year, in the couple years from now?

Anna Brit:

Yeah. Again, probably most excited about a longer engagement period for my couples.'cause that means I kind of get to spend more time with them. And I get to know and understand them better. with the shorter engagement periods, both me and the couple do the best that we can with sharing the information that we can there's a lot of, it's been hard too for a lot of couples this season because of rescheduling weddings.

Speaker 4:

Yeah.

Anna Brit:

And like right on October 3rd, I have three weddings, which is something I would not normally do. But again, because of reschedules, it's something that I had to do. So I know it's put a lot more strain on vendors this season, to be kind to your vendors. We're gearing up. We're going through it too, and we're excited. Yeah. But we're, kind of playing catch up. It's a little PTSD from like the COVID years. Yeah. Again, having to reschedule and feeling like you're constantly trying to catch up, but like trying to look forward while also like having to focus on the past and like Right. You know, it's, it's interesting. Yeah. You go to

Alex Jarbo:

a venue and you're like, or like a bar or even distillery and you're like, this didn't look like this. Mm. Eight months ago. Yeah. So Anna, thank you so much for taking the time hanging out here at Engadine. We're sitting in the ceremony spot right now where mm-hmm. Couples usually get married. but if you're looking to. Book, a wedding book, a celebration book, anything. Anna's one of the top wedding planners in this area and feel free to check her out. Thanks. Thank you. Alright. Boom. Crushed it.