New York
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During the week, Shar Aguilar works in tech advertising and marketing. Her weekend gig is usually a lot louder and a lot wilder. But for now, it sits and waits for her within the storage.
From nine-to-five on the weekdays, Aguilar joins many in Southern California at an workplace job, which she not too long ago started working in once more after getting laid off final yr. But as soon as she’s logged off, her to-do record doesn’t finish.
She’s sending quotes to purchasers, designing picture templates, closing bookings and coordinating with marriage ceremony planners. That’s as a result of she’s additionally working a marriage ceremony picture sales space firm along with her husband.
Aguilar spends most of her weekends manning her picket, minimalist picture cubicles – a rustic aesthetic the blends in with Southern California’s hilly vistas – for brides, grooms and all their visitors.
The financial system isn’t doing too scorching, however marriage ceremony bells are nonetheless ringing. That means Americans are nonetheless side-hustling.
Extravagant weddings reached their peak within the years following the Covid-19 pandemic: Couples who waited out the lockdowns have been willing to splurge on lavish dessert tables, picture cubicles, dwell marriage ceremony painters and extra. While the common value of a ceremony and reception dipped in 2024, it’s nonetheless nicely above what {couples} have been spending in 2019.
Weddings had 14 distributors on common in 2024, in response to wedding vendor marketplace The Knot. This makes them a veritable gold mine for people who need to begin a enterprise. Weddings usually happen exterior of the conventional nine-to-five workplace hours, with no scarcity of consumers or area of interest, typically wacky calls for.
And in an infinite flood of content material from marriage ceremony planning vlogs to bridal get-ready-with-mes on social media, some people need their weddings to face out — spurring add-ons like classic picture cubicles, mocktail mixologists and even dwell painters.
As one vendor instructed NCS, “there’s basically enough room for everyone” within the marriage ceremony business.
“You’re always going to have the weekend warrior or the side hustler creating something that has a small barrier to entry,” Shane McMurray, CEO of market analysis firm The Wedding Report, instructed NCS.
A July Bank Rate survey discovered that over a quarter of American adults tackle side jobs, although it’s at it lowest share since 2017. Gen Z takes on side hustles greater than different age teams, with over one in three having an extra job.
While the most well-liked cause for side-hustling was discretionary spending, a majority of Americans tackle extra jobs to help their households, pay down debt or shore up financial savings amid larger costs and inflation, Bank Rate discovered. This comes as the newest jobs report confirmed a slowing labor market with main downward revisions, reflecting a fragile job marketplace for most industries.
With uncertainty looming over the US financial system, right here are 4 people who are turning to marriage ceremony side hustles.
Shar Aguilar began a new company job in advert advertising and marketing for tech final month. It was her first week again at a full-time job since she received laid off in 2024.
But that weekend, she would additionally arrange picture cubicles at weddings.
Aguilar and her husband, who are based mostly in Southern California, began their very own picture sales space enterprise in March 2023 to assist repay their pupil loans.
“Obviously, at first we wanted to just make extra money,” Aguilar instructed NCS. “Weddings are mostly on the weekends, so that’s a perfect time for us to do it with our corporate job on the weekdays.”
Around 22% of weddings request picture cubicles, in response to McMurray. For Aguilar and her husband, their charges begin at round $1,250 for 4 hours of picture sales space time.
Aguilar mentioned they took out a mortgage to cowl the preliminary funding of $15,000 to $20,000. They looked for an reasonably priced producer for the picture sales space — then they needed to discover tools, a printer, backdrop and props.
Now, they’ve paid off that preliminary mortgage and have three picture cubicles in addition to three part-time workers.
On the weekends, they’ll work as much as eight-hour days, together with set-up, journey and packing up the machines. And throughout peak marriage ceremony seasons, there are usually triple bookings.
But regardless of the extra revenue, Aguilar mentioned she will solely earn a lot as a side hustler and enjoys the construction that comes from an workplace job.
Sarmed Qadeer, a 28-year-old from Austin, Texas, had spent his first paycheck from Corporate America on a Breville espresso machine. He and his sisters at all times loved making an attempt cafes and making matcha lattes at dwelling, he mentioned.
About a yr and a half in the past, the siblings determined to start out their very own espresso cart, a cell kiosk that serves drinks like strawberry matcha and cinnamon cardamom lattes. It’s an more and more fashionable development at alcohol-free weddings; Texas particularly has a giant Muslim neighborhood, which usually has dry weddings.
“We wanted to make something out of it, cultivate and grow a community, and essentially create something with our bare hands,” Qadeer, co-founder of Qadeer Coffee Co., instructed NCS. The cart has additionally serviced occasions at mosques and universities.
The siblings put in $15,000 of their very own cash as an preliminary funding. That cash went towards an espresso machine, the grinder and a cart. The enterprise has since grossed round $75,000, Qadeer mentioned, and costs between $1,500 to $2,800 for a marriage ceremony. The siblings have used the earnings to repay their money owed and make investments again into the enterprise, comparable to hiring a barista for occasions.
A 3-hour occasion can imply as much as two days of prep, between making syrups, stickering cups, and loading 80 kilos of ice into a van, Qadeer mentioned. And that doesn’t embrace the lengthy drives between Texan cities.
In his day job, Qadeer works in tech gross sales, an industry that is facing cuts to its workforce.
“(The coffee cart is) a buffer with layoffs being more prominent than ever and the economy struggling, I think it’s really important to be able to invest in yourself,” Qadeer mentioned.
Twenty-one-year-old Savera Bayat simply graduated faculty and works part-time as a French program teacher in Toronto, Canada. But for the previous seven years, she’s attended a whole lot of weddings and has been flown out to twenty completely different locations.
Bayat has been working as a marriage ceremony content material creator since she was 14, filming quick clips of occasions to submit on TikTok and Instagram with the last word purpose of going viral. She’s carved out a area of interest for herself working South Asian weddings — usually grandiose affairs with playful customs such because the bride’s siblings hiding the groom’s footwear.
Nowadays, content material creators can nearly be as ubiquitous as conventional photographers and videographers. Bayat will seek the advice of with a couple on social media tendencies, then movie quick movies and submit in actual time on the bride’s or groom’s social media accounts. That consists of TikTok movies and Instagram tales in addition to Bayat’s personal TikTok account, which has greater than 95,000 followers. She presently costs as much as $1,800 for 12 hours of content material creation.
When she started, “not everyone understood the concept of it.” But now, she mentioned, most {couples} see the worth of getting real-time reminiscences.
“I’m taking this chore off (the couple’s) hands, because when you work social media, it’s a full-time job,” Bayat mentioned.
By Bayat’s fourth yr in college, “I was traveling the world for it like every month,” and she needed to steadiness it along with her lessons. Now, she works with a workforce of 5 people.
“I’m only 21 right now, so I don’t see myself really stopping,” Bayat mentioned. “I genuinely love it.”
Memory Magnets makes magnet variations of photographs. Now, Sariah Howell and Memory Magnets not solely do weddings, but additionally promote machines and tutorials for others who need to get within the enterprise.
The magnet-making enterprise started after Howell gave beginning and grew to become unwell in 2024. Her husband was working two jobs on the time to maintain their household in Northern Utah afloat.
“I wanted to do something that was not too hard, not too demanding, something that I would enjoy, but also something that might be able to help bring in a couple hundred extra dollars a month to just help provide where I could,” Howell mentioned.
She began making magnets at native markets in Northern Utah and her on-line retailer; now she sells the toy-sized machines, kits and programs on the right way to begin a magnet enterprise. She initially invested round $2,500, and by June 2025, she posted on social media that she was packing a whole lot of orders a week and that the corporate had reached $1 million in gross sales.
Her enterprise received a large increase from weddings, which allowed her to work with a lot of various distributors.
“Without the wedding industry, I don’t know that we would have as much success now,” Howell mentioned.