jop and party

That’s not a bad option to have something smaller and more informal during this time. You could always do something more elaborate and larger later

Can you still have the wedding at your original venue? Or did you cancel and postpone entirely?
Sorry you’re going through this, it sucks.

Do a micromony and a dinner at favorite restaurant

You could also see about getting a close friend/relative to become certified to officiate (it's pretty easy) and have both the ceremony and party in your backyard?

View Quoted Comment The original venue screwed us big time. Wanted to charge over $2,000 just to move our date, because they said they could have it in November which we did not want to have. So we cancelled with them.

View Quoted Comment I was in a similar situation and when we had to decide what to do the venue said it we moved our date to a later date next year we would lose a good chunk of our deposit. We were so close to our wedding date and almost putting final payments down so we are at the mercy of the venue. I couldn’t walk away because it wasn’t just my money in this wedding so we decided to move it to September this year. If for some reason we can’t have it then, we will make another move. But for now it’s happening as we are open to have large gatherings of up to 250 people where I am at.

I’m so sorry this happened to you. I see so many brides losing out on money because venues refuse to reschedule and it’s heartbreaking to see. Especially during a time like this!

Wow that’s terrible! What a scam! We moved our reception but are having a 2hr micro wedding on 10/30/20. We can have up to 25 people as of right now in MA, though we are keeping it safe and sticking to our immediate family, photographer, and officiant. The micro wedding is covering the ceremony, champagne toast, photos, and I am considering a small cake/cupcake setup if possible.

View Quoted Comment

Oh Wow! That's awful. I'm so sorry you've had to deal with that.

Oh wow, Im sorry you went through that! I know I'm late but I hope everything worked out for you. We had a situation with our venue about changing the our date. Our original wedding was in April but when COVID hit out venue said we could reschedule 3 months out, so we moved it to July. When we realized this wasn't going anywhere we wanted to just move it to next year but the venue said if we did they would charge us more, and if we cancelled we would lose all of our money which we could not afford. In the midst of all that we went ahead and got married in front of immediate family. It wasn't necessarily my first choice to get married and have the wedding later but with everything going on we decided it would be best. It took a lot of back and forth but we ended up moving the wedding to next summer so we'll be celebrating around our 1st anniversary.

Do what works for you. Lots of people during non-pandemic times have an officiant with a backyard party for budget reasons. Go for it.