COLUMBIA, S.C. — High schools around the Midlands are holding graduations, and small businesses here in Columbia are getting a boost thanks to the celebrations.
The end of May and early June usually marks high school graduation season across the state.
Although local graduations will come to an end within the next week, some downtown businesses like Cupcake DownSouth says orders will continue through the coming weeks as well.
The bakery says they have five cupcake orders with a few dozen cupcakes each all being fulfilled for graduations on Thursday.
Alexis Deese-Smith has worked at Cupcake DownSouth for three years and says high school and college graduations are normally a busy time.
"We have a lot of people call in and do custom orders with graduation-specific decorations and they will ask for the different colored sprinkles for their school colors, or little graduation caps," Deese-Smith explained.
She says the rush they get for graduation will continue throughout the summer with Father's Day and the Fourth of July holiday as well.
However, other local businesses like Vestique in Five Points says their boost will not last as long.
"If I'm being honest, because this is a 'college girl' store, I don't know if it's enough for our sales," sales associate Zoe Herold said. "It's like this every summer. It just gets so slow."
Herold says although they get more orders for dresses around graduation season, their sales typically slow down during the summer.
"When the girls come in looking for graduation dresses it definitely boosts our sales a little bit, but we're just hoping they continue to come back after that," Herold stated.
Despite the summer slowdown, Vestique is hoping that people continue to order from their website to overcome the summer slump.
The final Midlands graduation will be Pelion High School at Colonial Life Arena on June 5.