How many of your vendors are giving full refunds

I was lucky enough to have all my vendors and venue move the deposits to my new date next year. I didn’t want to wait a whole Nother year but at least I didn’t lose any money.

View Quoted Comment Yes seriously. Unfortunately for my reception hall the venue is going to keep our deposit if we cancel AND if we postpone. They are having a meeting on friday and im waiting for the updates. I am more than likely feeling they will cancel on us. My county i live in hasnt shut down and as of right now my church isn’t canceling us either. I have almost 2 weeks until my date. I was hoping to even have a ceremony at my house as last resort.

View Quoted Comment Well that is seriously messed up on their part. So sorry. You think they would all be understanding seeing as what’s happening in the world right now and it’s not like you are wanting this to happen. Good luck, I hope it all works out for you.

So far my venders have been helping and trying to work with me. But I have to adjust things like times and date but you are right the non refundable deposit is what people don’t understand and if not is not in the contract about refund they don’t have to give one that is why you need to spell it all out in contract and make sure everything is covered including natural disaster and things like this.

View Quoted Comment Yoo who would have thought!! Like when we signed these contracts we wouldn’t have even thought to ask the vendors to specifically write in situations where we could be fully refunded. So crazy.

We picked a new date that worked with all our vendors because I had a vision I didn’t want to give up. I only lost my videographer but ended up upgrading to a better videographer/package and he gave 1000 discount and my original vendor gave me my 1000 deposit back.


Usually act of god Is in the contracts and it most of the time includes a national emergency. I had to point that out to my band when they tried to bring up the $500 rebooking fee and they didn’t mention again

We are postponing and so far all of our vendors have agreed to the original price, just a new date. So we haven’t lost any money! But we’re postponing to a date a year away, so all of our vendors have had our date available. As you say, if we cancelled (or postponed to a date they were not available) I’m sure they’d keep everything we’d already paid.

View Quoted Comment Yeah we are trying our best to not postpone but it looks like the only way to not lose money. 5 vendors told me refunded minus deposit

We postponed our 3/28/20 wedding for August 2020. We got a date with our venue and then checked with some of our favored, and/or more expensive vendors. We kinda lucked out that it all worked out. Everyone just pushed it back. We didn’t lose any money or have to pay more....August is considered peak season for most wedding vendors, while March is not. The only thing we could not keep was the baller Airbnb we booked to get ready in but Airbnb is currently requiring a full refund within certain days. Overall we were pretty lucky but I do think plan of attack is important. Talk to the venue first, then priority vendors. 🤞 this is cleared up before August.

Monica-The CDC recommends groups of 50 or more cancel for the next 8 weeks as of March 15. Not sure how they can justify forcing you to have your wedding - they should at least let you reschedule. The problem I’m having is my venue is closed and I have no back up date. My photographer is not available all the alternate dates in September and October I’ve given him. I haven’t even started on the dj yet. I hate having to redo all of this!

View Quoted Comment So im understanding that the cdc recommendations are just recommendations and are not necessarily enforced by law or exact rules. It actually depends on the county to use those recommendations or create their rules. For example county shutdowns are enforced by the county and are also enforced by law. I keep checking the county website and looking for cdc updates. My county hasn’t shutdown yet and the public health website for my county doesn’t say the same thing as cdc recommendations.


It does suck having to do it all over sorry for all that stress. I might be in ur shoes soon.

View Quoted Comment My venders thought I was crazy even had in about them empty trash to dumpster and cleaning bathrooms at venue at end of event for caterer That and I try to think of everything I could cause I over plan and things like that. But I have been fortunate I been hearing some bad stories others

View Quoted Comment So you were able to add natural disasters into your contacts when you first signed? Good for you for thinking ahead. Im waiting to hear from my reception hall. They are going to update me on Friday.

View Quoted Comment I had hurricanes Godzilla hail fire disease famine seagull birds bats animals. Some I just did to be funny but it made me smile. Unfortunately venders are a business and you are a number to them. so from all the weddings I have been to I have taken some notes and asked after things from people.

View Quoted Comment 😂😂 and kudos to you. I will start reviewing my contracts tomorrow which im sure natural disasters will be excluded.

I haven’t been very successful with this. Our DJ had an acts of God clause in the contract and said the money just isn’t there anymore and he doesn’t know what to tell us. My makeup artist is also keeping around $700 and my florist wants to keep $500 and even tried charging me the second payment. Thank God our venue is refunding us in full. All I know is that, if we decide to re-plan in the future, I’m aggressively negotiating the deposit amounts with my new vendors because I don’t want to need to file lawsuits to enforce the “acts of God” language and get my money back.

View Quoted Comment Wow! Thank you for your point of view with this. Thsts crazy that even though you have that clause in ur contract its almost worth nothing. I feel like your DJ should honor it even if it takes him a while to refund the money. Are you planning to postpone with your vendors or are u fully canceling. My FH doesn’t want to postpone but im in the process of convincing him lol. We wont know for sure what the new date is until 2 more weeks but as of right now October 3rd is on the table. And still none of the vendors will refund if we cancel. Im worried that our new date will be taken and unavailable and we will be forced to cancel some vendors.

View Quoted Comment We decided to move the wedding from FL to NY so we could have it on a piece of property my family owns to save money and not have to find a venue. Our former venue was booked out a full year on weekends and I can’t take more weekdays off after all this. Also, none of the vendors were going to give us their “weekday” rates so we would have been paying Saturday prices for a Wednesday wedding — not acceptable to me. This virus has had a huge financial impact on our bridal/groomsmen party and families so having it closer to where they all live was the best decision for us. My photographer agreed to travel, which is AMAZING. The remainder of my vendors likely won’t and will just keep our money without having to perform any services in return.

View Quoted Comment My recommendation would be to postpone ASAP while your venue has the date then start calling vendors. I essentially called my photographer to get dates first since we moved to a non-venue and will be having a backyard wedding on our own property now.

View Quoted Comment Wow thats a big move going from FL to NY. That sucks that you will lose your money even tho moving ur wedding to closer to home was a great choice. Had you already paid your vendors in full or just deposits?


Unfortunately due to our city wide shutdown I wont know full availability until the week of April 6th. Thats the worst part about this. Thins are still up in the air and I would like to get the ball rolling on locking in the new date but I cant, I have to wait.