October Brides/coronavirus Stress

I think we can all agree that being a bride this year isn't as happy and exciting as we imagined it to be. I've cancelled my destination wedding in Cancun and rescheduled for April of 2021 in Dallas Texas. I suggest let out all your frustration, cry it out, etc. but don't give up! What's important is that you're going to spend the rest of your life with your best friend! Elopements are much more nicer than people think. (We eloped) it's more intimate and reminds you why you're celebrating to begin with. Good luck to you and your groom!

MA bride here...My wedding is scheduled for 10/24/20 but with COVID(no more than 25 people indoors{including vendors}, no bar, and no dance floor ) we made the decision to reschedule our reception until 10/23/21 .....We will still get married on our date with a small immediate family only ceremony followed by dinner in an event room at the restaurant where we had our first date.

Next year we will have a vow renewal followed by the reception we have been planning for!

I'm less stressed about the wedding itself, and more stressed over our stubborn ex-reception venue. My fiance and I want a full refund, communication broke down with them for months and it wasn't until I asked for my signed copy of the contract that the owner reached directly to me. Now, we have scheduled zoom meeting with him on Monday, hopefully to settle this dispute.

It's not right for them to ignore us for months and expect us to allow them to take most of our money!

I would suggest that if you want to continue with the large wedding and you are able to by law, invest in a very big outdoor tent and have it outside for safety's sake. If that doesn't work with your budget or your venue, drastically reduce the guest list now (and start contacting vendors - like the caterer - to see who will give you some money back) and have a much smaller event. If you act now you may be able to save some money on things like a guest book, centerpieces, dinner rentals, favors, etc., so at least you won't pay full price for the smaller wedding. If none of that works, do what a lot of others have done and talk to your vendors now to see if you can postpone for an entire year. Then have a micro-wedding now. Use a backyard or park, invest in some pretty decor and a tent, get some lawn games and do potluck, skip all the usual vendors and save that for next year.

Also an October bride - we are staying as planned, we reduced our invite list to 50% of venue capacity before sending out Save the dates, with the expectation that about 50% of those invited would come putting us at 25% of our venues capacity. If I could guarantee that if I postponed to next fall I could have a larger wedding, I would 100% do an elopement this year and reception next year, however the trajectories I've read have said they don't expect "large events with no restrictions" to really exist until late 2022 early 2023 (due to people being skeptical of an initial vaccine in early 2021 and quantity of a vaccine and thus not enough people getting vaccinated to make things go back to normal). I personally, cannot be in "wedding planning mode" for that long, to me that just ruins the excitement and will just cause me to be anxious an additional year, potentially for a cancelled event. I realize that I need to move on with my life and away from wedding mode, even if that means I don't have an unrestricted wedding and have a smaller guest count. We are asking all of our guests to wear masks, and originally that made me sad, but I would rather know I did everything to protect the people attending my wedding. We have also made it extremely clear that if people do not feel comfortable coming, just let us know there are no hard feelings and we are providing a live stream if they still want to be a part of the day. At the end of the day, if things keep getting worse and I have to restrict to only immediate family and the wedding party I would also be okay with that. the wedding party was selected because they are those people that we couldn't do life without and them + my family are really all I need to be there, the rest who come are just a bonus. And worst case scenario if our state goes into restirctions again and the venue has us reschedule, we plan to celebrate with a backyard ceremony with a small group!

So to sum it up, if you don't want to postpone, you just have to be okay with a reduction of people and having restrictions at your wedding that wouldn't be around in "normal" times

I have had to postpone mine twice now. June 27 and September 5, 2020 were the original dates; now June 26, 2021 is on the table. We're currently trying to work the possibility of an outdoors ceremony and reception into our plans. Our venues are still hanging in there with me which eliminates much stress. I'm trying to put on any Covid-weight. Some days I tell myself if I hadn't already paid for EVERYTHING already, I would just call the entire thing off and just go get married at the courthouse. Thankfully, my FH is just as excited about waiting until we can have my fairy-tale wedding.

I'm from NY as well (Upstate) and currently our wedding is scheduled for 10/17/2020 but we are looking at having to cancel it. Many of our guests are out of town and older and are afraid to come. Mostly due to the fact they don't have enough time to quarantine before the wedding. We are thinking of the small mini wedding with us and our children at a restaurant as well. Are you going to wear formal attire for the 10/25/2020 celebration or are you going semi-formal. I'm debating on whether to do the formal attire (wedding dress, bridesmaids dresses, and tuxedos). We are an older couple and our children are the bridesmaids and best men.

My daughter postponed her spring wedding and its now scheduled for October 16th...they've cut the guest list, most of the venue is outside and high risk family members are not coming. It's not the day she imagined but, she's happy that the end is in sight. Keeping my fingers crossed and looking forward to them finally saying I do.

I am getting married October 24th also! We were very optimistic when this first started too, but now we are having to change things quite a bit. We have been engaged since October24th 2018 so I for one am tired of waiting. Our plan for this year is to rent a small banquet room in the back of a restaurant in our town. We will have a mini ceremony and then have a "celebration dinner" with our wedding party and closest family and then afterward head out for our honeymoon. We intend to incorporate some aspects of our reception to still make it special such as a cake and a first dance, but otherwise it will just be a time to be together and celebrate and then we will have our big wedding next year. Trust me girl I have ugly cried over all of this a time or two (maybe five), but what matters is that we will still be getting married. we are making it work to the best of our abilities and trying to remain positive. None of this has been easy this year, but my suggestion is to go with the flow and try not to take anything too hard. Another thing that has been extremely helpful is my vendors have been amazing with moving things to next year and been cooperative, I hope yours have as well! Good luck to you and your sweetie!!