Champagne at your Wedding or Prosecco, maybe English Bubbly too?

Champagne for your wedding?

It is certainly a must for any celebration and especially for the all important wedding (or divorce depending where you are in your love life of course)! Champagne to toast the happy couple will be certainly what the bride and groom and for that matter, everyone else celebrating the happy couples wedding and looking forwards to the end of the speeches would have ordered. Whilst writing this blog I think back to the many weddings that I have attended (I used to film many society weddings) and the wonderful glasses of Champagne that I have enjoyed in a room full of celebrations, I never once saw anything less than a known brand label being poured, it was more a battle on the style of glass used flute or coupé!

So, what is it we hear now from recent sales figures released by Laithwaites, Champagne is not the popular choice for the wedding couple with an average of only one in twelve choosing to go with Champagne compared to an overwhelming leading favourite being Prosecco with two thirds opting for the Italian Bubbly. Yes, weddings will still have the usual red and white wine on the menu and if partying the night away, many shorts will be on the list to, but it’s the lack of Champagne orders in such a big industry sector that must surely make people think. With the ongoing increased popularity of English Sparkling Wine being the choice of Bubbly at weddings too, does this mean that the word celebration no longer necessarily means ‘Champagne’? Is it more the word Bubbly we are looking for here, so long as we can pop the corks and raise a glass of fizz or two we are happy?

I’m sure Champagne is certainly looking at ways to increase their sales throughout the UK, but this does leave them a few places behind the leader with regards to celebrations at weddings… In fact, the latest wedding I attended only a couple of weeks back had Prosecco too!Of course, financial reasons will account for many people opting for Prosecco, though as we previously released on our website just recently, Champagne prices are attractively low now in the UK with many national supermarkets offerings it out at £10 a bottle. Also, we do not know the volume of bottles purchased, two thirds opting for Prosecco could very well be outweighed in ‘actual bottle purchases’ compared to the few that run with Champagne for their wedding – I can remember one wedding where the father of the bride said 350 bottles of Champagne were chilling in the cellars we ready to pop later.