How to Postpone Your Wedding Due to Coronavirus
We all know that “postpone your wedding due to a coronavirus pandemic” was not on ANYONE’s wedding planning checklist! If you are one of the wedding couples whose wedding has to be postponed due to COVID-19, you are not alone. Thousands of weddings across the country are being rescheduled in order to keep everyone safe.
Most couples spend months and even years planning for their wedding day - deciding on every little detail and preparing for all the things that could go wrong (What if it rains? What if I spill wine on my wedding dress? What if there’s bad traffic?). And while those wedding planning checklists are great for problem solving with umbrellas and Tide To Go pens, I don’t think they prepared anybody for what 2020 had to offer!
But everyone always says that one thing will go wrong with every wedding day, right? Well good news - you are getting your one thing out of the way beforehand! Which means your rescheduled wedding day is going to be absolutely perfect.
Though your new wedding planning checklist has a few extra steps added to it, you’ve got this! Here are the 6 things you need to do to postpone your wedding due to coronavirus:
Review your contracts
Start with the information that you already have by looking over all of the contracts with your venue and vendors to see how they typically handle rescheduling weddings. But don’t stress if your contracts don’t seem to address this particular situation - most vendors haven’t had a pandemic affect their weddings before this!
Check your wedding insurance
If you have a wedding insurance policy, now is the time to reach out to them to see what might be covered. Unfortunately many policies won’t cover cancellations, rescheduling, or lost deposits due to pandemics, but it’s worth checking just in case. Give your wedding insurance company a call to see how they are handling weddings affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Don’t have wedding insurance? It’s probably a good idea to look into purchasing a policy for your new wedding date! Policies purchased now will definitely have exclusions relating to coronavirus (since it is a foreseeable issue at this point), but should still be able to help you if any unforeseeable issues arise, like a hurricane on your wedding day or your dress getting damaged.
Reach out to your venue and other vendors
Before deciding on a new date, make sure to talk to your venue and all of your vendors! If you’ve got a wedding planner, that’s probably the place to start, otherwise start with your venue. Get a few possible dates from your venue, then send those to your other vendors to compare availability! Find out from everyone how they are handling postponements and what fees are involved with rescheduling or if they aren’t available on your new date.
And don’t forget about your hotel room blocks too. Although hotels aren’t a traditional “vendor,” you’ll want to be thinking about where your out-of-town guests will be staying on your new wedding weekend.
Choose a new date
Ideally, you’ll be able to find a date that works for everyone - your families as well as your vendors! Selecting a date that all of your vendors are available for is great for several reasons:
You get to keep all the awesome vendors you wanted in the first place.
You don’t lose any of the retainers that you’ve already paid.
You’re supporting small businesses during this tough time.
This might mean picking a day of the week or month of the year that wasn’t part of your initial plan. But trust me guys, I’ve been to plenty of amazing weddings on every day of the week! Choosing a non-Saturday wedding or doing it during an off-peak time of the year will likely give you more options of dates that work for all your vendors.
But sometimes it’s just not possible to find that perfect date, and you might have to choose a day that one or more of your vendors is unavailable for. Figure out which vendors are the biggest priorities for you - whether that’s based on how important the service is, or the cost of forfeiting your deposit - and find the day that works for most of your priority vendors.Notify your guests
As soon as you have booked your new date, it’s time to start letting your guests know so that they can adjust their travel plans. Emails or texts are a great way to get the word out quickly, and make sure you update your wedding website and registries with your new wedding date. Several stationery companies are also offering adorable “Change the Date” cards! (A couple of my favorite, locally-owned small stationery businesses are Boutique by Teresa Katherine and Dreamcatcher Stationery.) Much like the save the dates you probably sent out already, these are a great way to announce the new wedding day.
Get ready to celebrate
Make sure you still do something fun on your original wedding date! Whether you want to hold a virtual wedding that day with your friends and family online, or plan an extra special date night just the two of you, make sure you celebrate.
And when the new date arrives, be prepared for the possibility that EVERYONE will show up haha. Once restrictions are lifted and big social events are safe again, all of your guests are going to be eager to come celebrate with you! Your wedding day may look a little different than you originally planned, but it’s still going to be an amazing day with all of your favorite people around you.
