In the $100 Billion Wedding Economy, Hiring a Witch Is More Than Hocus Pocus

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news.

**Sarah Holder** (0:08)
In May, US inflation accelerated at its fastest pace in more than three years, and the consumer price index climbed 4.2% from a year earlier. Things are getting more expensive, including having a wedding.
The wedding planning website, The Knot, reported that the average cost of a wedding is now over $34,000. Newlyweds are spending nearly $300 per guest. And Bloomberg's Dina Katgara says, in this economy, some couples are willing to pay a little extra for anything that can make them feel more in control on this big, expensive day.

**Dina Katgara** (0:49)
There's also just generally a lot of uncertainty in people's lives with the rising cost of goods and with housing costs going up. If it blows a lot in their heads, that's a big question mark. So if they can lean on anything that can provide them some kind of stability, people will do that.

**Sarah Holder** (1:09)
For some, stability is coming in the form of a spell.

**Sarah Schenken** (1:14)
I don't truly know what powers lie within the Etsy witch community. I certainly don't want to dismiss that it is possible for them to dramatically change the day.

**Sarah Holder** (1:28)
It might sound a little woo-woo, but wedding spell casting is actually a growing industry. On the online marketplace Etsy, witches are selling their services to spouses-to-be, promising to ward off bad weather at the wedding, or at least manifest good vibes.

**Sarah Schenken** (1:46)
There is a little bit of peace of mind. You're not paying that much. This makes you feel like you maybe have done everything you can to ensure the outcome you want.

**Sarah Holder** (1:58)
As Sarah Schenken and her fiancee planned their outdoor wedding in Brooklyn this spring, rain was in the forecast. So her friend ordered them a spell off the internet for $7.49.
Would you have bought it for yourself if it wasn't a gift?

**Sarah Schenken** (2:13)
I think we were at that point where yes, we would have. We actually had more than one friend buy it for us, from different people. So everybody was thinking.

**Sarah Holder** (2:21)
So you had multiple witches on your side.

**Sarah Schenken** (2:23)
Yeah.

**Sarah Holder** (2:30)
I'm Sarah Holder, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, planning a wedding in a time of economic uncertainty. How newlyweds approach spending on their big day amid rising costs, and why some are turning to magic.
Josyana Joshua covers personal finance for Bloomberg. She spends a lot of time thinking about what people spend their money on and why. That's how she found out about the Etsy Witches.

**Josyana Joshua** (3:03)
So it actually kind of started because one of our coworkers was getting married, and we were on a call and I was like, oh, weather doesn't look great, like I'll buy an Etsy Witch for you. And then everybody on the call was like, what are you talking about? So I think that's kind of how it got started.

**Sarah Holder** (3:19)
Josyana had been seeing newly married social media influencers giving testimonials for the spell casting services on TikTok.

**Josyana Joshua** (3:27)
Welcome to my wedding, my Etsy Witch worked. No rain.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:30)
It's been raining all day.

**Sarah Schenken** (3:32)
Look at the weather right now.

**Cammie Danaher** (3:33)
Table salt she put in her spell. It worked.

**SPEAKER_1** (3:37)
We love you Etsy Witch.

**Sarah Holder** (3:39)
And on Etsy, the online marketplace for small businesses, there were pages and pages of listings advertising things like a powerful good weather ritual and clear skies spells.

**Dina Katgara** (3:52)
You can just go to etsy.com, type in weather witches, and you'll see a whole bunch of different little thumbnails for different Etsy witches come up.

**Sarah Holder** (4:02)
That's Dina Katgara, who reported the story with Josyana.

**Dina Katgara** (4:05)
And a lot of times they cost anywhere from like a dollar to $25. So it's relatively cheap cost here.

**Sarah Holder** (4:13)
Etsy's house rules actually forbid metaphysical services like spells and rituals. So when you buy a good weather spell, the actual product you're getting is essentially a PDF.

**Dina Katgara** (4:25)
A lot of times it says different things like, here's the best way to manifest the good weather for your wedding day.
Here's what happens if it does rain. A lot of it is, I think, talking and positive manifestation so that you feel less anxiety about the big day.

**Josyana Joshua** (4:41)
Yeah. The other thing for the PDFs is a lot of them will actually tell you what they did to do the spell. So it'll be like, oh, I lit a candle and I said, let's have Katherine's wedding be 60 degrees and sunny. They'll put that in there too. So people will not be worried that it's a full scam.