So, you were planning the best day ever.
You were dreaming big dreams about the celebration to start off your new life together.
And then the sh*t hit the fan.
You’re not alone. This stressful situation is shared by thousands of couples around the world who are facing the same hard decisions because of COVID-19.
Here’s what to do now.
1) Contact Your Vendors
The first ones to contact are the people who are making your wedding day happen. If you hired a wedding planner, you’re in luck. This is their forte! This is something they’ll assist you with.
The best way to start is to reach out to your wedding professionals via email. This is a good way to do things, so that you have a record of what you’ve spoken to who about that you can refer back to later. It’s a lot easier than trying to remember a phone conversation.
Start with your key vendors. This could be your venue, catering, photographer, decorator, and DJ. (This list will look different for everyone, depending on what you consider to be a priority for your day.) Ask them for 3-4 dates that they currently have open, so that you can try and match up availability. Some might even be able to provide you access to their online calendar, so that you can easily see what dates they have open, without needing to go back and forth.
Try and stay understanding. Your wedding professionals are small businesses, and are dealing with many of their brides in the same circumstance as you find yourself. This influx of email and calls take a lot of time to respond to, and this might cause them to take a day or so to respond, when normally you’d get a response much sooner. This is especially true, because in some cases, they’ll have to work with brides whose weddings were happening before yours, (such as in within the next few weeks), first.
This is your wedding team, and they’re here to make your dreams reality, and they’re here to help you to the best of their ability. Please understand that any delays in getting back to you isn’t because you aren’t important. You are the heart of their businesses, and they need you more than ever.
2) Keep an Open Mind
While discussing options with your vendors, keep an open mind when it comes to your new date. While your original date may have been planned for a Saturday, finding another Saturday during the summer or fall of this year may be difficult.
You might consider an off-season wedding, which here in Newfoundland is generally from November to May. There are lots of weekend dates your venues and vendors will have open!
A February wedding around Valentines day? Super sweet!
A wedding in May, you might get lucky enough to have beautiful icebergs in your photos!
If you’re stuck on summer, there’s nothing wrong with that. Consider other days of the week like a Monday, Thursday, or Sunday. You’ll have a better chance of securing all of your vendors, seamlessly and stress-free. And YES, your guests will still attend your Sunday wedding! The people who really want to be there won’t even think twice about it. And isn’t that who you want to be there anyway?
3) Making Your New Announcement
Letting your guests know what’s happening as soon as you can is a good idea, especially for those who have to travel, so they can cancel flights and other plans. Even those who aren’t travelling from away may have made arrangements to attend your wedding, such as hiring babysitters, or booking hotel accommodations.
If you have a wedding website, update it with your new date. Then, call your parents, siblings, and close friends. They’ll want to help you in any way possible. If you split up your guest list, you can delegate who calls who, and they can help you make phone calls.
If phone calls seem a bit daunting, that’s okay. While most situations call for etiquette rules to be followed, because this is an unprecedented situation, there is no wrong way to let people know about your new plans, but make sure you reach out personally in some way. If you only make a Facebook status, not everyone will see it. Our social media newsfeeds right now are packed full of updates on the situation as it develops, and you don’t want your update to be lost in the mix. If you have an email address for some of your guests, you can send out a group email to them. To those you don’t have an email for, but you know check social media, you can send a Facebook message.
No matter how you reach out, make note of who you’ve heard back from, and who you haven’t. You might need to follow up with them in another way to ensure they received the message.
4) Feel Your Feelings
One of the positive things you’ll find, is that as soon as you’ve completed rescheduling, a lot of your stress and worry about all of the what-ifs will fade away.
But it’s still completely normal to feel sad and disappointed that things have changed due to something so beyond your control. A wedding is a major life event, and something you’ve likely been looking forward to for months or even years.
You can recognize that the world is facing some bigger issues, but you don’t need to feel guilty for having your own emotions about your plans not happening the way you imagined. The grief is real for so many of us. It’s not silly to be upset with how this has impacted your wedding day, and your life.
Make sure you are supported. Voice how you feel to your fiancé, they might be sad too. Talk about how you feel to friends and family members who understand. Reach out on the Newfoundland Brides Discussion group, because we are all in this together.
Most importantly, be kind to yourself right now. Although things might feel sad right now, soon you will be right back to being excited for your new wedding plans. You have more time to fine tune some of the details, and to pin some more Pinterest finds.
Keep your head up! We are currently living a part of history in the making. Remember this is a story you’ll tell your children and grandchildren when you’ve grown old together over many happy years.
At the end of the day, this wedding WILL happen, you will be surrounded by your loved ones, it will be remarkable, and you will remember it for the rest of your life.
And on that note, my final point…
5) Get Ready To CELEBRATE!
Even if it’s not the day you had planned, the date will always hold significance. Find a way to celebrate together on your original wedding date. Make it a new tradition that you’ll do every year! Make a special dinner. Open a bottle of wine together. Dance to that first dance song, just the two of you in your living room. Mark it in some small, special way.
Then, before you know it, it’ll be time for your wedding! (Remember how fast the months have gone since you’ve gotten engaged?) When the day comes, your guests are going to be so ridiculously excited to celebrate with you, so get ready for a HUGE party. Let’s be real, we’ve all been wearing old t-shirts and yoga pants for weeks. We’ll be so overjoyed to have a reason to celebrate LIFE, and change into some fancy clothes, and be together!
With a newfound appreciation for social festivities, your guests are going to be so grateful to gather together in person than ever before! Your wedding will have even more significance as a recognition of unity.
How many times in life are all of the people you love in the same room together? Way too few! Weddings are such unique celebrations. There is nothing else like them.
Imagine yourself. You’re in your dress. In the middle of the dance floor. You’re being spun around by your new spouse. All of your family, all of your friends are around you having the time of their lives. They’re dancing. They’re (badly) belting out the words to the songs you’ve loved for years. Everyone is laughing. Everyone is celebrating.
Your day is coming, beautiful. And it’ll be worth the wait.