Tariffs, trade costs blamed as Weddingstar prepares to close after 43 years

He says the removal of the U.S. de minimis exemption, which previously allowed lower-value shipments to cross the border with fewer duties and requirements, has also added paperwork, handling costs and delays.

“When de minimis was in place, shipments could flow freely across the border. Now each order needs paperwork; there are handling costs and other costs applied to every single order now that wasn’t there before,” Brink said.

“All these other little storms add up, and it’s quite significant extra cost to a company like ours who deals in smaller orders and smaller margins.”

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Weddingstar owner Rick Brink during an interview in 2025. (Image Credit: File Photo/CHAT News)

He says the company initially hoped the tariffs and related uncertainty would be temporary; however, the situation has continued for several months without a clear end point.

“You can’t plan; it’s difficult to invest in other opportunities when there’s so much uncertainty, the risk is just too high, and not knowing what the end game is,” Brink said.

“It’s difficult when you’re dealing with something that can change from week to week to week.”

Brink said there was also uncertainty for Weddingstar during the COVID-19 pandemic; a pivot to selling facemasks kept the company going.

“Things were closing, but after one or two weeks you knew what was happening, and could work on a game plan, and see what direction to go in, and we diversified,” Brink said.

“But this is totally different, and almost blocking a huge market for us to get into, and the game plan changes week after week after week, so very frustrating for businesses.”

Brink and his wife Helle decided it was better to control the timing of its closure rather than risk being forced to shut down.

The company had attempted to shift attention outside of the United States.

“Once the tariffs were being applied, we tried to invest more into the Canadian and European markets,” Brink said.

“Unfortunately, the Canadian market is not big enough to replace the US market. The marketing spend we were doing in Europe, they announced in the middle of June that in two weeks, on July 1, they were implementing a five-dollar charge per line item of products coming into the EU. Which basically made it impossible for us to continue in the EU.”

On July 1, Weddingstar would shut down its European website.

“There’s been a lot of little things happening because of the tariffs, and they’re all just snowballing and hitting us all at once,” Brink said.

“We’re getting hit from all angles.”

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A full Weddingstar warehouse in 2025. (Image Credit: File Photo/CHAT News)

Weddingstar began in 1983 after Brink, who had previously played pro hockey in Denmark, connected with a Danish manufacturer.

“I was looking for a different type of product, and this company kept trying to get me to carry their products and try to sell them in Canada and back then the Danish government offered a $50,000 guarantee to companies to export, so that’s how I got my line of credit to buy products,” Brink said.

“I brought in a shipment of his products, and they were paper honeycomb products that were for Christmas and Easter, and there was a red and white Christmas bell in there.”

Brink would go around to retail stores trying to pre-book orders, with potential retailers asking about different colours.

“By the time I talked to all these stores to pre-book Christmas and Easter, we had about nine colours of bells that people were interested in, and that’s how we started getting into the wedding business was with those colored bells,” Brink said.

“Helle and I just kept adding more and more products that these customers that were buying the bells from could end up purchasing from us, and it started in the basement of the Red Owl Foods on 7th Street, and also in my parents’ basement was my office,” he added.

“We just kept growing and expanded into a smaller warehouse space, and then moved again to the larger one and then after that we built this building and moved into this building,”

Brink says over the years, the company has shipped products to more than 100 countries, but the United States has remained its largest market.

He says hundreds of people have worked for Weddingstar over its history, including full-time, part-time and seasonal employees.

Brink and his wife, Helle, whom he met while playing hockey in Denmark, say they appreciate the people who helped build the company and its connection to the Medicine Hat community.

The company’s 55,000-square-foot building, with a total area of about 70,000 square feet, has been sold to a local company that is expected to take possession in November.

Brink says he is not able to release that company’s name at this time.

A U.S. company is also considering taking over Weddingstar’s website, although Brink says that arrangement has not been finalized.

He says that could allow the Weddingstar brand to continue in some form, even after the Medicine Hat operation closes.

For Brink, the decision marks the end of a business that had outlasted many changes in the marketplace.

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READ: Weddingstar CEO says international tariffs are also impacting Canadian companies (Aug. 1, 2025)

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READ: Medicine Hat wedding supplier pivots beyond industry in tariff response (May 2, 2025)

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READ: Manufacturing disruptions from coronavirus minimal so far in Medicine Hat (Feb. 19, 2020)

by Jesse Gill

Tariffs, trade costs blamed as Weddingstar prepares to close after 43 years

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