How to Start Planning a 2021 Wedding during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Planning a Wedding

Apr 1

You’re newly engaged, perhaps you’ve set a wedding date, and now you find yourself social distancing, staying home, and anxiously trying to make decisions about when, where, and how to start planning your wedding as the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic. To say these are uncertain times is the understatement of a lifetime. But… you have a lifetime ahead of you, and God willing, you get to spend it with your newly betrothed. That’s something to celebrate. And I firmly believe that when we’re all on the other side of this, there will be no more meaningful experience than a social celebration. So here’s my advice. Start planning! Here’s how…

Step 1: Pick wedding date(s)

If you haven’t already, it’s time to determine when you’d like to be married. And then you need to select a few alternative dates. Now more than ever, flexibility is critical. Even if you’re planning an intimate celebration of less than 50 people, you may very well confront a shortage of available Saturdays in 2021. In many wedding markets, Saturday venue availability can be hard to come by in normal circumstances. That’s particularly true in coveted wedding destinations. That hardship may be amplified in 2021 because so many 2020 weddings have already had to postpone and reschedule into new 2021 dates. Take a deep breath, and remind yourself of the following:

The day of the week does not change the value, purpose, or meaning of your marriage, or of the way that you celebrate that marriage.
When we all emerge from our current reality, the world will be very different. Like you, your guests will also be craving meaningful social celebration. If they can make it happen, they will be there to celebrate you… on a Friday, a Sunday, or maybe even a Thursday.

Step 2: Hire a wedding planner

This is the step that most mainstream wedding media articles will skip over. After all, it’s a luxury to hire a wedding planner, right? Yes it is. It’s also a luxury to hire a photographer, caterer, band, hair and makeup artist… and the list goes on. Have you ever heard the saying “Failing to plan, is planning to fail”? Well, it’s time to take that to heart.

Since quarantine measures were put in place, we’ve seen a steep rise in the number of couples reaching out to us - and to our other industry colleagues - frantically seeking advice. Many couples have been forced to navigate uncharted territory of decision-making, contingency-planning, rescheduling, contract negotiations, cancellations, and extreme anxiety on their own. We’ve seen this happen across the spectrum of wedding locations, styles, and price points.

The bottom line is this: couples who have a full-service wedding planner have found themselves in a much better position. The rescheduling process has been smoother, more efficient, and grounded in expertise. Couples who do not have a planner have had to fend for themselves - or they’ve had to scramble to find someone to hire who can help them.

There are ample reasons to hire a full-service wedding planner, but most people think the reasons to do so are just so that the wedding will be “organized”, “beautiful”, or “stress-free”. Those reasons are worthwhile for sure, but it’s also easy to see why most people choose to go it alone, isn’t it? After all, how hard can it be to be organized, choose beautiful things, or keep the stress level low?

This is the part where I’m going to shed light on what full-service wedding planners actually do. Because if you’re planning a wedding right now, you deserve to know this - and you need to think about things differently than you might have done in a pre-pandemic environment.

Just a little insight into a few of the many things our team does for our clients:

Research, research, research. And then more research. We do not make venue or vendor recommendations of any kind to our clients that are not heavily grounded in research, and/or do not live up to our highest standards and expectations.
Why this matters: when we help you hire vendors, we’re building a team of professionals who need to be in sync, work exceptionally well together, and be committed to the same priority, which is serving you. If you don’t have a *good* team of professionals in your corner, it’s a fair bet they won’t behave in a professional manner or in your best interest when the unexpected happens, and/or if you need to postpone, reschedule, or reconceptualize your wedding.
Contingency planning. Need I say more? While it’s true that no wedding planner alive and operating today has ever seen a pandemic of this scope and size in their lifetime, it’s also true that the type of work we’re doing now is not new to us. For years we have been accustomed to trouble-shooting, anticipating, and navigating circumstances beyond our or our clients’ control. We’re used to pivoting and adjusting plans based on severe inclement weather, safety considerations, governmental regulations, travel restrictions, unanticipated illness, emergency situations, etc. This is quite literally what we have trained for, prepared for, and done throughout our entire careers.
Why this matters: If you need to change all of your plans in the days and weeks before your wedding, you will need professional assistance in doing so. Full stop. This pandemic has forced countless couples to confront the unimaginable and the emotional toll on them as been significant. Don’t put yourself in this position.
Industry Leverage. Relationships matter. Clout matters. Leverage matters. It’s hard to identify any scenario in which we wouldn’t have more negotiating power than our clients would have on their own.
Make no mistake - when I talk about negotiating power, it’s important to clarify here that we do not - and will not - bully our way around the industry to get what we want for our clients. We know that kind and thoughtful negotiation is always more powerful - and successful - than any effort to strong arm anyone into submission. We work hard to identify opportunities and solutions that benefit everyone involved in any particular negotiation surrounding a contract or policy at stake. That said, it’s important to consider the reason that travel agents are so successful. If you buy a single airline ticket for yourself - you have no leverage with the airline. However, if the airline has the opportunity to provide hundreds of tickets for a travel agent’s book of clients, then that airline is much more likely to bend over backwards to offer the best rates possible. The same is true with venues and vendors who see the value in working with planners who have the capability to supply them with more than one client. Does this mean that wedding industry vendors are out to take advantage of you if you’re on your own? No! It’s a simple matter of business math. A planner can often offer more than what you can offer on your own, which means that a vendor may be able to be more flexible in offering solutions when it comes time to troubleshoot or pivot.
Why this matters: You need someone with leverage in the industry to be your advocate. When push comes to shove, if you’re forced to navigate hard circumstances, a well-connected advocate will be able to get you further than you can ever get on your own.
Financial budget development, forecasting, and management. I can assure you that if you were to ask my business partner and our team’s principal event planner, Betsy Krug, what she thinks the least exciting part of her job is… the answer would be creating and maintaining budgets. But if you ask her what one of the most important parts of her job is… the answer would be the same. We take our responsibility to help our clients be good stewards of their resources very seriously.
If you begin planning your wedding without a comprehensive understanding of your financial comfort level and/or limitations, the expenses you should anticipate, and the foresight into when/how you will need to spend money - then you are taking on an extremely risky investment in the blind. We work with budgets for intimate events and budgets for large, extravagant events alike. Our clients’ budgets range from $50-$60k to over $500k. But no matter size and scope, or budget of the event - our approach is the same. Budget development is critical and needs to be done as a first step before contracts are signed, commitments are made, or mistakes are locked in.
Why this matters: It’s hard to overstate the importance of this here. Free online budget calculators are not customized to your wedding, your priorities, your needs, or changing circumstances at all. It’s never advisable to make a significant financial investment without a clear understanding of the path and commitments ahead of you. Enter a worldwide crisis, and you’ll feel even more unsettled about your lack of insight or control over what you’ll need to spend.

My intent in writing this post is not to scare you. It’s not to make you feel bad. It’s also not to shame anybody into hiring our team. It’s simply this…

I know how much your marriage will mean to you. I know how much your wedding celebration matters to you and your family. I believe deeply and fully in the purpose and timeless value of celebration. That’s why I chose to do this for a living so many years ago, and why I’ve never looked back since. I also know this to be true: the process of planning and executing your wedding celebration will be made significantly more joyful if you retain a professional, experienced wedding planning team to bring your hopes, dreams, and priorities to life.

And that’s why I wrote this post.

Do you want help? Get in touch and let’s connect. If we’re not the right fit for you, we’ll happily help provide a referral to other planners and teams who may be. We’ll continue to share insight, guidance, and answers to questions here on our blog over the coming days and weeks - but there’s just no replacement for the invaluable relationship you could have with a wedding planner.

Start planning. You don’t have to halt your excitement, and pandemics don’t get to postpone love. Just don’t plan to fail by failing to plan… or by trying to do it all on your own.

Yours truly,

Becca