Help!

Cierra, honestly this is almost exactly my situation. Oct. 3, 2020 was our date and my grandma who is in town is very old and would not stay away if we went forward with the wedding, and a good chunk of our guest list also has to fly.

What helped us make the decision now was the flying aspect. One of my fiance's family members is international so they called us basically asking "Hey, do we buy these tickets today or not?" because they need to get tickets so far in advance to get the seats and times they prefer.

And when I told my fiance we will have to social distance on the dance floor, as there won't be a vaccine most likely, he told his family not to buy the tickets and we decided to move the date.

The only way my situation is different is the following: "If I cancel, I will not get any of my deposits back and my fiancé doesn’t want to postpone to anything past spring time."

My fiance and I both agreed that next Spring and next Summer are out, as I will be finishing school and graduating and starting a new job. So, we both understood the choice was this Fall or next Fall. In addition, every single one of our vendors was happy to change the date, because they also were worried about a potential second wave of the disease in the Fall.

I understand the deep concern about possibly infecting your older family members, but also the unwillingness to throw away good money.

One possibility we considered, which might work for you, was to keep the venue and date and have a very very intimate and small ceremony. Not unusual so far... BUT because we would save money on food and alcohol, we thought, we could hire a videographer to make one of those really cinematic movies of our ceremony, which we could send digitally or on disk to the distant family members who are older or have pre-existing conditions so they can enjoy the beauty of the day. Could even work with the videographer to collect video of congratulations from some of those far-flung guests to add in to the video, as a surprise for the couple. It seems much less awkward than fighting with Zoom or some other grainy, laggy, real-time streaming platform.

I hope your wedding turns out to be a wonderful day for you, however you choose to do it. Wishing you the best of luck!

View Quoted Comment Thank you for your understanding. Our ministers suggested zoom and I was a little apprehensive about it. I would hate to waste my money and others. Maybe I can downsize. We also thought about getting married at the courthouse and postpone for a reception next spring so our money isn’t completely wasted. Even though my girls have dresses already! Hmmm decisions decisions

Ours Is 10/17 In VA With 60 Guests And We're Moving Forward As Planned Unless The Venue Says Otherwise.

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I'm a Ga bride too (was AUG). Most of the guests flying in from up north and some international. I decided to postpone even though our venue said we can now host up to 150 people. My concerns were the health of the people, the elderly and the feel of the event. Will it feel like a celebration in a pandemic? Once we sent out the Change of Date, I got inundated with my guests saying that they felt relieved and didn't feel comfortable coming. Even though they wanted to support us they didn't want to tell us what to do.

Have you at least held a back up date until you make a decision?

We decided to cancel/postpone, however we have to take on a whole new set of plans so I understand the pain! Ours was supposed to be June at Disney 😬
Instead of risking pushing it off indefinitely, we've cancelled with them and are trying for a small celebration in September at a cute little chapel. Hopefully this won't be changed, but if it's this bad then, we probably have bigger issues! My heart goes out to you all dealing with this ❤

My wedding was supposed to happen on march 20th it was a destination wedding and it got cancelled 3 days before we wanted to go ahead with the event but our guests started to cancel and we had no other option we ended up canceling everything is paid in full and we dont have a date yet! Our wedding is in uruguay all the way in south america but they closed the airports and their borders quickly and they remain closed. I feel awful .. we dont have a new date yet 😭

View Quoted Comment They are arbitrarily deciding these phases. 50 or less based on what? The truth is gathers won’t be safe until there is a vaccine.

View Quoted Comment Thank you for your input.

I haven’t been following Georgia very closely (NY bride here!) but I feel like it depends on your unique situation and what you’re ok with your big day looking like. Have you spoken to your vendors and venue about a backup plan to postpone? If they won’t give you your money back and it’s mostly paid for, personally I would hold out for October. My wedding was supposed to be 5/30 and we pushed it to 8/22/20. I also have about 90-100 guests and I’m feeling cautiously optimistic. My backup plan is renting a tent and having it in our backyard (really hoping we don’t have to do that). For us, we just don’t want to postpone any longer and want to try for kids this year (we’re in our 30s). Also, most of the people coming to our wedding live in the area. I’m ok with getting creative and figuring out a way to do social distancing if we have to. But also, we have a really cooperative venue so that makes it easier. I think that even if it looks a little different, people will be really excited to see each other - even if it’s a “no hugging” reception. At the end of the day, it all depends on your gut feeling. I hope your big day is amazing I’m so sorry to all of the brides who are going through this. It just sucks the fun right out of wedding planning...

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Aw, what a special date! Our original wedding date June 20, 2020 is special to me just because I like that date and want that to be my anniversary as I always dreamed of a June wedding. However, although we postponed our wedding for October 16, 2020, we will still be getting legally married on June 20, 2020, and I am also saying that for the October wedding, whoever comes comes. I plan on moving forward with that date for our wedding celebration since our guest list is not large. Less than 125 guests.

I’d say go ahead and get married and have a big reception. That is most definitely my plan b. You’re absolutely correct we don’t know when this will be over and you’ve already purchased things and can’t get your deposits back.

Hugs. Me too girl, same day, same situation. A lot of family on my side live in Canada and the border is closed. I thought about it, we’re still having it, show must go on. Can’t afford not to.

I'd keep the wedding. If some people are already not coming you may not end up having 100 people. Our wedding is in July and we're keeping our max of 60 people. We had to keep it to majority family. Places are starting to open back up , including Disney world which has hundreds and thousands of people. I think you'll be okay! (: but ultimately it's your decision! Just do what's best for you and your FH. Hope Everything works out!

My husband and I just got married on Jekyll Island in Georgia March 14th for our destination wedding. I think we were one of the last (possibly the last) wedding that was held there before the closures, and they are back open now. Anyway, we lost a good 10 or 12 people from our original 40ish, due to all the chaos (including a groomsmen the day before!!), but it still ended up being a beautiful night and we are married 😊 Which is the most important thing. I was a bit disappointed at first about not having everyone that I wanted there, but to be honest, the only regret I have is that the day was so busy, I feel like I didn't pay enough attention to all of the little details. We have decided that once it is safe, we might have a bigger, less formal reception/celebration in our home state, PA. Maybe a larger reception/gathering later on could be an option for you?

Also, I'm so sorry this is happening to you My cousin is in the same situation and isn't sure which way she is going right now. Her wedding was supposed to have 200+ people originally.

I'm in Georgia as well and my wedding is December 19,2020. I'm taking precautions like dont come if not feeling well, wear mask, hand sanitizing etc but I'm still holding my wedding

Oh I feel you! We ended up postponing our May 30, 2020 wedding a full year plus to June 12, 2021 but eloped on our original day instead. Prior to making those decisions, I was super stressed thinking about all of the money we put down on deposits, and how the day would not be at all what we wanted.

I'll share some of my experience in case it helps. We eloped at our venue with just our parents and a few close friends. My husband's parents wouldn't even hug us and it felt really disconnected to have social distancing in place. The vibe was weird and even though people were all really happy for us it did not feel like a celebration. While I'm disappointed in how that day felt, I LOVE that we got married and did not wait to become husband and wife. We did have some beautiful and sweet moments (primarily the ones that were just between my husband and I) and going through with a socially distanced mini ceremony makes me feel much more confident that the decision to push our wedding back a full year was the right choice. Being socially distanced from our loved ones just didn't feel right at all, and I wouldn't want to spend all the money we planned on a big wedding event where people can't hug and dance. If many of the current restrictions and social distancing recommendations are still in place next year we will likely postpone again until it feels like we are free to celebrate the way we want to. Marrying ahead of time gives us that freedom, because at this point we are only pushing off the party, not our marriage and not our future.

Personally, I would wait until closer to the date to make a decision, and then if you feel like you cannot have an event that feels right to you, postpone to a later date. Canceling outright will cause you to forfeit your deposits and there doesn't seem to be any benefit at all to canceling right now, so I would hold off until you get to the point where you absolutely need to make a decision. As you get closer to the fall, if there are still restrictions in place and you have the option postpone and keep all your vendors without any additional costs, there is no harm in doing so.

Also, I'd talk to your fiance some more about postponing. Why is spring his deadline? If he just wants to be married, you can always do that whenever you want and then push back the wedding and reception to later. And if spring is a hard deadline moving your date to April still gives you an additional six months for the world to get Covid more under control, and hopefully have better treatments or a vaccine that would make your family feel more safe traveling.

Hello Cierra,

First off congratulations on your engagement and wedding coming up soon!

I would advise you to check if your venue has any coverage for pandemic outbreaks. My venue has a policy where it moves all funds towards a new date and no fee for changing date. Some vendors due to this pandemic are holding the same clause as well. It is very unfortunate but many are being reasonable given that it is a global pandemic and out of ones control. I am very sorry to hear about those close to you coming in contact with the virus I'll be keeping you and your family in my prayers! At this point it's hard to say when there will be a cure but the best thing to do is take it day by day. Since your wedding is in October I would say start letting guest know some time before August if your date will change. Also check with your wedding invitation carrier some are offering free save the date changes for all your guest. I have zola and they have been very helpful and insuring that I'll receive free change of date invitations for my guest in case I need to change it.

Best wishes!

Hello wedding date twin! I'm from Indiana and I'm in a county that was impacted moderately, but I know how you feel. Have you talked to your venue yet? I know that ours and our vendors have made it clear that they're going ahead as planned so if we cancel we're out the full payment, which we simply cannot afford to pay twice so we're going ahead as planned. If there is a second wave, we're hopeful the venue and vendors will HAVE to cancel and we'll be able to get our money back and then we can just reschedule.

Call your wedding venue ASAP. They should offer you dates that are flexible going into spring even though things in ATL have started to open back up.

Instead of sending out new save the dates you can always opt for email/facebook updates for your guest to cut cost.

If you still want to get married on your original date, I say do it! You can keep it small with a dinner with just your immediate family and wedding party. Then at a later date have your big reception at your venue with everyone. It for sure won't be the same but it's a compromise to consider.