How soon to decide switching venues?

Am I reading it correctly that you'd only be losing $200 from your refund if you waited until July? If that's the case, that's the route I would go. We have no idea what the spring will look like with the promise of the vaccine, so I'd be wary on changing anything for fall 2021 until we get a better picture. Granted, I also waited until 3 weeks out from my July 2020 to postpone, so if you're more of a proactive person, take that with a grain of salt.

View Quoted Comment

Yes, that's right, just the $200! I do tend to be on the more proactive side (last year we decided to postpone 2 months before our original date), but I do feel like January is so soon and a lot of things could change past that. I am very curious to see how this vaccine will affect re-openings!

How much do you LOVE your venue?

I know folks are getting excited about vaccines, but we are still a long way away from going back to pre-pandemic normal. Rolling out vaccines will take a while and many of the vaccines being developed are multi-dose and require time to build immunity. I work at a college and our nurses say that realistically things won't start looking like normal until the tail end of next year, because the majority of the population won't start receiving vaccines until mid-late summer and then it will take some time for them to complete the entire vaccine cycle and build immunity.

Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-vaccine-timeline-when-will-they-get-authorized-shots-start-2020-11

We were supposed to have our wedding in May 2020 so had booked all of our vendors and had everything ready to go by the time the pandemic hit. We ended up having to cancel the wedding, but still got married anyway, and managed to find a June 2021 date that worked for all of our vendors, so we postponed our celebration to then. Now our venue, who is also doing all of our catering, is telling us they don't anticipate having normal weddings at all in 2021, and pretty much won't return to normal operations until a vaccine is out and we achieve herd immunity.

My husband and I have decided we cannot put our lives on hold for our wedding, but the venue/catering is our biggest vendor deposit and also the vendor that is the most important to us. Our photographer shot our elopement, so we've been able to make use of that deposit, and the other vendor deposits we have all a few hundred dollars or less and add up to just under $1000 combined. So we may end up just canceling our June event and not rescheduling anything at this time, but asking our vendors to consider applying those funds towards any future contract we may book with them and if we don't book a new date with them then we will just forfeit the deposits entirely. Then we might just wait until the pandemic is over to even consider getting a new date on the books to celebrate. That way we can start focusing on our attention on other things, like starting a family, and not spend between now and a date in 2022 thinking about our wedding.

If you aren't super set on your venue, have some other venue options in mind, and having an event and getting married sooner rather than later means a lot to you, I'd go for the refund. However I would be sure to secure another venue first - last thing you want to do is give up your spot and then run into similar issues with other venues.

View Quoted Comment I was reading more about the vaccines today and yeah, definitely think next year won’t look too different from now

We’re in loooove with our venue which I think it why it’s so hard to let go of. It’s a pretty popular one that’s hard to book. Not only is the price hard to beat in our area, it’s one of the more practical ones for us to get to and checked a lot of other boxes aesthetically for us.

I feel like overall I’m leaning towards going with the refund because ultimately it seems the least risky choice since we are pretty set on celebrating in 2021 and are willing to part with a larger celebration. We cut our original 85 guest count to 60 last year before deciding to postpone, and we think we’d probably cut that down to just our immediate family and close friend group which would be 15 people max depending on guidelines once our new date rolls around.
I still need to do more searching, but I think I’ll feel more secure in that choice once we find a possible alternative venue. Once we have one I think a huge weight will be gone!

I totally understand where you are coming from. We are trying to elope in Fiji and have a back up venue in Cali this fall. Whatever you do, do whatever is going to give you peace of mind. My fiancé & I initially fussed about putting deposits down for an additional venue. However, I didn't want our plan b to FEEL like a plan b. I think if the deposit isn't too steep, feel free to look at an alternate. Cali venues are NOT cheap and for me, losing a $200 or $500 deposit isn't worth stressing over. If it means I get the venue I want, then I'm good. Keep in mind we're competing with all the 2020 brides that had to reschedule. I had SOOOOO many venues encourage me to push things to 2022. I would marry my man in a courthouse before I push this past 2022. Mentally it's draining and I just want us to start our life together already. But again, everyone is different. I just wanted to validate you point. Our planner shared she could get all the vendor 6 months out. So if things are not looking good by May 2021, we're pulling the plug and moving to plan b. Wish you all the best!

View Quoted Comment

Ah yes, totally agree on not wanting it to FEEL like a plan b! I started searching for a new venue and it was so much harder than I thought. While I found some alternatives with our date open, I felt like each had a major con I couldn't get past. And it felt like ultimately changing venues would cost us more than losing the $200 deposit because some vendors would charge us more since the travel distance for them would be farther/the venues themselves were more expensive. I really hope you're able to go through with your Fiji elopement, that sounds fantastic! Again, totally agree I'd rather do a courthouse than push to 2022, I'm exhausted from thinking about it all year and can't do it again. We decided on May 2021 being our cut off too! That's the month before the balances are due on the rest of our vendors, so we figure that would be the best time to call it quits and try to find a place to elope/try to use our vendors for a different celebration or something along those lines. Best of luck to you and happy new year!

My fiancee and I made the decision to switch to a different venue four-five months from our wedding. Our wedding is this coming Feb. 2021, so literally one month away. With people putting pressure to just postpone or cancel, I don't have the heart to do that. I'm literally living for this wedding at this point, I have poured my blood, sweat, and tears into this for the last two years, and COVID or NOVID, I will have this wedding no matter what.

OMG you are SO lucky that your venue is offering a full refund. I wish our venue would do that . Our venue is in the Bay Area.

View Quoted Comment

Totally understand! It must have been so heartbreaking changing venues the first time, I can't imagine trying to change plans a second. I hope it all goes as smoothly as possible!

View Quoted Comment

Oh no!!! Did you have to cancel or are you still deciding at this point? You're absolutely right, I've sadly come across some horror stories in reviews for other venues about couples having a lot of trouble with flexibility regarding deposits, so I have definitely come to learn that we're in a very lucky position. Wherever you are in your wedding planning process, I wish you the best of luck!!