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If you are at this point of postponing your wedding, don't worry... we got you.
First of all, we completely empathize with what you and your fiance are going through. We see such beautiful moments and have such heartwarming phone calls with our couples that we can easily forget that sh*t can really hit the fan sometimes. Yes, swearing is new for us on here but it's just the only phrase that seems to fit these days.
When trying to figure your way through this whirlwind of emotions, the important thing to do is to sit down for a moment with your fiance, hold hands and take a big deep breath. This is not the end of the world and you will still get married. Your wedding may be a little different than what you have been planning for but you will still have the wedding of your dreams, we promise.
First Step - Breathe and Take Baby Steps
Once you have taken a deep breath (and we mean deep), start to contact your main people that you need to inform. This would be your immediate family, your Wedding Coordinator and then your Venue. Once you have informed them of this change, you can then have your Wedding Coordinator start contacting your vendors to spread the word.
Get a Wedding Coordinator
If you don't have a Wedding Coordinator, we highly suggest to get one in this time of need. There are lots of Wedding Coordinators out there (including us) that are helping new Wedding Couples that are postponing their weddings and transitioning everything over to their rescheduled dates. This would include letting their vendors know of the changes, checking on overall availability of who you have booked and everything else you can think of. They do this all while even throwing in some discounts to help during this unclear time.
Securing a New Date
If you are still deciding on a new date, make sure you are in constant communication with your Venue to see what they still have available. It may not be the perfect Saturday wedding in May you always dreamed of but being flexible is key in this portion of the re-planning. Fridays and Sundays are generally open for most Venues and tend to also be a bit cheaper than your original Saturday (which we think is a silver lining out of all of this). Be open and be aware that this might be a possibility you might come across and a reality you might face.
Tell your Guests
This might be the hardest part and also a very long part of the process but trust me, everyone will completely understand and thank you for taking their safety seriously. Again, they know they will get to celebrate with you eventually so there shouldn't be much push back here but only love and hugs sent your way.
The best way to tackle this is to divide your guest list into 4 groups. For example, the Bride should take her close family members and friends, the Groom would take his. Then the respective sides of the families (Bride's side and Groom's side) will take their extended friends and family that they have been in touch with to let them know of the news. This lessens the workload for you and takes off some pressure on having to reach out to all 150-300+ guests.
Make sure you keep tabs on your Guest List (Excel, Word Document etc.) on who you have contacted and who has responded or received your message. From there, you can let them know you will be in touch once you are able to send out the new invitations with the revised date, time and information.
Checking Availability
Once you have contacted your key people with your new date in mind (Family, Venue and Coordinator), now you and your Wedding Planning team can confirm all of your previously booked vendors to see if they are available on this date too. Best case scenario is that they are all magically available and nothing needs to change. Worst case scenario is that you will have to start your search over again for a few new vendors that are available for this new date and have a similar aesthetic to what you are going for. Again, we cannot stress this enough...Get...A...Planner. Remember how long it took you to plan this wedding the first time around? Yea - well planning it all over again is not going to be pretty. Getting a Wedding Coordinator/ Planner will make all of your stresses disappear by handling all of the repetitive researching, quote comparisons and designing you require so you don't have to plan 2 weddings in 1 year.
Reviewing Your Contracts
This is a crucial step. If you are going with new vendors due to availability issues, this is imperative that you review your contracts with your Coordinator to ensure you know what you are eligible for in terms of a refund/ what is owing. Normally there is a non-refundable deposit that was made to secure most vendors. This in most cases is still non-refundable and we don't suggest fighting them on this one. Given the certain climate of why most people are rescheduling, this means that your vendors are feeling this tenfold and are going to need that deposit you have given them now more than ever since most of their weddings are being cancelled or rescheduled. What we do suggest asking if it is a sizable amount of money, is if it can be credited for another event in the future to let them keep this deposit but also provide you a service later down the road. There was a reason you booked them in the first place and having another opportunity to work with them might be the perfect solution for both of you in this tough time.
If you are feeling overwhelmed with this part - since a lot of contracts are long and filled with wedding industry terms etc., this is just "one thousand and one" reasons why you should get a planner. See a pattern here? Trust me, it's worth it.
Start the Next Steps in Planning
Sometimes your vendors will prompt you for next steps if the wedding is around the corner (July, August or even September) and ask you to provide information that they might need if they are a new vendor and just taking on your wedding for the first time. Sometimes nothing will be needed from their end if they were an existing vendor since most of it was already completed beforehand. Whatever the case may be, ask for help. There are lots of people you can lean on, including your Wedding Coordinator, and this is your time to do so. Take this step by step... don't bite off more than you can chew.
Moving Forward
While there are so many things you are going to have to go through now moving forward with new plans for your big day, the best thing to do is to take this day by day. Some days you are going to be sad and some days you are not going to care as much. It will be a roller coaster but surrounding yourself with people who can help is the most important part. Having a Wedding Planner taking the pre-planning and coordination steps off of your plate is a good start, and asking your friends and family to help where they can is another good approach. Slowly but surely, you will get there and next thing you know, you will be standing at the altar not even thinking about how stressful this turn of events was but glad that it all turned out exactly how it was supposed to be.
All my love,
Charlie xo
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