If You Need to Reschedule Your 2020 Wedding Due to COVID-19
Photography by Amanda Castle Photography
2020: the year of the global pandemic. Never in a million years could any of us have guessed this would happen, and we are so genuinely sorry this is happening in the year of your wedding!
If you’re confronted with the question, “Should I postpone my wedding?”, know that you are not alone! Millions of people planned to celebrate their nuptials this year and have been left asking, “Should we move forward with our wedding plans or reschedule?”.
We ask that question almost daily, and as a full-service wedding planning company, we help our clients make that decision through the lens of our industry knowledge and with careful calculation.
COVID-19 is no one’s fault. You and your fiancé are not to blame. Your wedding vendors and venue are not to blame. This situation is out of all of our hands and is heartbreaking for everyone across the globe. Our hearts go out to couples who have been dreaming about and planning their wedding for many months only to be confronted with the reality of changing their carefully laid plans. We also feel for the network of small businesses rooted in the wedding industry that rely on their forecasted income from in-person events to support their families. Everyone in the world has been affected in one way or another.
It’s okay to be sad and it’s okay to feel disappointed, but we can get through this if we work together! Celebration can and should still happen. Weddings don’t have to be cancelled. Love for one another will prevail, if we let it!
Regardless of your wedding date, if you’re planning a wedding for 2020, we strongly encourage all couples, families, and vendors to begin having conversations about possible outcomes for weddings planned within this year. Here are some tips for weighing your options to either stay the course or postpone (not cancel) your wedding:
Decide when you want to be married:
Do you want to be legally married this year? That’s the first and most important question, and there is no right or wrong answer.
If the answer is yes, you want to be married, no matter what, there are several ways to approach this:
You can choose to forge ahead with your current wedding plans and prepare for how you might react if you are restricted to a smaller or different style event (more on this later). Or
You can decide to take a proactive approach and postpone your big party to next year. This is a good option if you find yourself obsessing over the news or constantly worrying “what if.” This approach has been a popular choice among couples, as there are still a lot of unknowns - stress has no place in your engagement season!
With this option, you can still create an intimate wedding ceremony this year with a delayed reception in 2021, and we love the idea of bringing celebration back to family dining rooms this calendar year!
Even if you are married in a small ceremony this year, you can still share a ceremonial exchange of your vows in front of your larger group of guests at your delayed reception in 2021. And if you want permission to wear your dress twice, you have our joyful blessing!
If you’ve decided it’s safest (and less stressful) to postpone your original wedding plan (ceremony, party, and all) to a new date in 2021, an extra year of engagement may just mean extra joy on your wedding day!
Do your research:
Every state has different rules, and those rules are changing almost daily. Some states that have reopened have restricted venue capacity to 25-50%. This means that if the venue capacity is 300 and the restriction is 25%, the total cannot exceed 75 people, including staff and vendors working onsite. That likely means only 55-60 guests. Many states have imposed a cap on the total number of guests. For example, it’s not uncommon to see restrictions that allow for only 10 guests indoors and 25 guests outdoors.
States that have made moves to reopen also have guidelines regarding social distancing, masks, number of people per table, distancing of tables, and distanced space required for a ceremony set up. We still have yet to fully understand rules and regulations for how dancing can work and if food stations, buffets, and butler passed hors d’oeuvres will continue be allowed. In most jurisdictions, guests will be required to wear masks except when eating or drinking. Different venues will enforce unique hygiene requirements, and many will require guests to be screened upon entry and/or sign waivers. We are learning more each day. Pay attention to news from a variety of media outlets to get a complete picture.
Think through scenarios:
We encourage all couples to take a proactive approach and have internal conversations with family about the “what ifs.” Stress comes from not knowing what will happen. Don’t wait to hear updates from the governor of the state in which you plan to wed to come up with your plan. Even if the decision is made to reopen in the state, the requirements may change quickly and unexpectedly… even up until your wedding day. Start to have conversations with your family and vendors so you know how you will make decisions once you get updates. If events are still restricted to a number of people or restricted to a percentage of capacity, keep in mind those numbers need to include staff and vendors (wait staff, band members, photographers, planner, banquet captains, managers, bartenders, musicians, DJs).
Here are some ranges to consider:
50 people gathering restrictions: You can likely plan to have 30-35 guests in attendance to leave room for staff.
100 people gathering restrictions: You can likely plan 70-75 guests in attendance
150 people gathering restrictions: You can likely plan 115-120 guests in attendance
Have conversations from a place of understanding and care:
The most successful route to a new wedding plan really requires that anger be removed from the conversation. These are scary times for everyone, but we are in these uncharted waters together. Love and honesty in our communication goes a lot further than anger.
Remember that creatives work in the wedding industry, because they value the joyful celebration of marriage, and nothing brings them more joy than a wedding day! And we are all working our hardest to make that a reality for you. The financial impact to small businesses is real and harsh. Small business owners in the special event industry want to balance safety and fairness with the ability to keep our doors open to love and serve clients for many years to come.
Small business owners also recognize there is financial impact to you and to the amount you planned to spend on your wedding. If your vendors can accommodate your postponement without a price increase, they will. But before you expect (or demand) anything, I encourage you to weigh some of the following considerations:
Where are you at in the planning process with that vendor?
How much work has been put into planning your wedding at this point?
How much work is left?
How much shifting/ additional work is required to accommodate a new date?
How much additional communication will be required over the course of the new planning period – are you adding 12 more months of emails, phone calls and meetings to the process?
Is your wedding vendor operating in a business model that requires them to have an event almost every weekend of the year?
It is not unrealistic to assume that many small businesses in the wedding industry will be forced to operate at a small fraction of their previous income this year – and as weddings from this year postpone into dates next year, they will lose the ability to book new business on those dates. Be understanding and give your vendors the benefit of the doubt as you engage in conversations about postponement or rescheduling fees.
Be flexible:
Vendors and venues have gotten creative in their ability to love and serve their clients during this time. The hard reality that everyone is facing is that there are only so many Saturdays in 2021, and those dates are filling up quickly. The longer you wait, the less availability there is. If your venue or vendor books a large volume of weddings most weekends of the year, they may have very little to no availability to postpone to 2021. This is often the case at popular venues that book over a year in advance and not uncommon for bands, photographers, and event management/wedding-day coordinators.
To accommodate everyone, venues and vendors are trying to find enough days in the calendar in 2021. If couples are willing to choose a non-traditional day (weekday, Friday, Sunday), many venues and vendors will transfer the current contract to the new date at no additional fee. Some have even been willing to reduce the contract fee if the new date isn’t a Saturday. Vendors know a non-Saturday date is probably not your first choice, but they also recognize you may lose out on some of your other deposits. Everyone is trying to work together. If you are flexible in considering a different day of the week, you will more likely be able to have your event with no additional cost. While the thought of paying more to a vendor for something that isn’t your fault (like a global pandemic) seems unfair, we understand, and we encourage you to think about things from all perspectives. Open and honest communication is key. Use the considerations above to frame your thinking. We have yet to encounter a wedding vendor who is out to unfairly take advantage of a client during this pandemic. Most businesses are just trying to find fair and equitable ways to help clients and continue to make a living wage so that they can remain in business and cover their baseline costs. At the end of the day, you want to make sure your vendors are still able to remain in business when it’s time to celebrate in person.
Note: If you are in the process of considering postponing and have a wedding insurance policy, reach out to your agent. Insurance companies may allow you to collect any lost investment on your wedding insurance, or they may allow you to transfer your policy to a new date. Depending on your potential loss, you should weigh your options for cashing out versus transferring forward.
Nothing about any of this is easy. It’s okay to feel frustrated. It’s okay to share your heartbreak. Find comfort in knowing you are not alone. Rest assured that our team and so many others want to help you create a meaningful, safe, and joyous celebration to honor your commitment to your fiancé and to your vows to spend the rest of your lives together. Love is not cancelled.
When in doubt, let’s talk! If you find yourself, as a couple or vendor, navigating the possibility of postponement with uncertainty, we invite conversation.
Know one thing is for sure: The joyful art of celebration will be back! More than ever, people will look forward to the moments we’re invited to come together to share in happiness. You can bet I will RSVP yes! Newly engaged couples are already thinking about and ready to start planning a 2021 wedding. Weddings will always continue to happen, because love is too important to not celebrate.
Stay positive! We’re all in this together. We can’t wait for the day when we can toast again in person. It will come and we’ll be the first ones there to pop that bubbly!
