recently Engaged- Are y’all choosing a date?

I got engaged June 2019 and decided a 2 year engagement due to saving for a big wedding. We also bought our house 2 months later. I’m so happy my parents talked me out of July 2020 this year. Couldn’t image dealing with all this. Figure out what your budget is and it’s okay to wait 2 years to have us get everything we want in our wedding.

Also I had vendors already booked 2 years out so the fact that most 2020 weddings are going to be moved to 2021. It would be harder to start from scratch.

I think of you are looking at 2021, there’s no time like the present to book your big vendors. My future SIL pushed her June 2020 wedding to next year, and from talking with vendors, I know a lot of dates are already getting snatched up to make 2021 extra crowded and busy. That’s partly why we decided to look ahead to 2022, just so that we could lock in some of the biggest pieces (especially venue) without feeling as much pressure to get all of the other details lined up right away. I think vendors are going to have a packed year next year, and it may mean more compromises on your part if you haven’t gotten them lined up early.

I would start planning now. As Chelsea mentioned, many vendors book up over a year in advance. You may also find that with many 2020 brides being rescheduled, vendors are even more booked for late 2020 and into 2021 than normal.

I would be aware: as a professional in the industry and a late-2021 bride, it's kind of a toss-up. The downside to booking vendors now is that some could go out of business due to the virus. If social distancing rules are still in place in 2021, that'll be logistically tricky to either move your wedding again, or cut the guest list significantly. I've been talking to wedding planners and many have said that venues aren't allowing people to book in mid-late 2021 temporarily because of the virus, as well. It really depends on your state and governor, as well as what happens within the next few months.

We've been aiming for October 2021. We've been in contact with venues and have a hold placed on an October date right now, but we've decided we aren't going to put any deposits down until June, at the earliest. I'd get in contact with any big/important vendors (mostly your venue, planning/DOC, and catering) to see if you can put any holds down and gauge what their current policies are and if people are starting to book for your time period now. This could help you make informed decisions in the next couple of months.

Last thing: POUR over everyone's contract. Figure out their exact cancellation policies, what money you do (or do not) get back, how far out you need to cancel to get money back, etc. It's best to be over prepared during these crazy times. Good luck to you and your future spouse!!

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much! That is very helpful. We will work on putting a date on hold with a venue.

Coming from someone who cancelled their wedding and would hate anyone else to go through this or lose money, push it back as far as you can. If and when you set a date, I would push to have verbiage added in contracts regarding this to cover you. Majority of force majeure protects the business and not you.

This week we canceled our 2021 wedding. All that we had done so far was to book a venue for September 25, 2021. I was already having a great deal of difficulty with getting other vendors to contact me back and the ones that I was able to speak with were booking up rapidly for the end of 2021 especially. I don't want to have to compete with 2021 brides/grooms for vendors plus all of the 2020 brides/grooms that had to postpone as well. I was also a little worried about if our venue would be able to remain in business until the end of next year if they continue to be unable to hold events. And on top of that we could be out of work at any time now so it certainly would not be the best time to be handing out deposits. I hope that everything opens back up soon but if things do continue into 2021 like some people say they will then we would just rather plan for 2022. It seems like an eternity away and we don't have a set date yet but it seems like it's the right decision for us.

We chose a date that we hope will work, but honestly, we also decided to go to the courthouse if the state shuts down again. We had already postponed once though, so if it can't happen next February, I'm not going to want to go through all this planning and organizing again! Good luck hun!!

Hopefully this is all gone by 2021 and so many dates are getting filled due to all the cancellations. I have my wedding this year in November and contacted our venue and vendors and as of now they are keeping the date. A friend of mine is getting married in August and was supposed to be May and Hers is now August. So much unknown right now but I feel like 2021 should be ok.

Hi & congratulations! I got engaged on April 3 and we decided on July 24, 2021 (it was July 22 at first but we pushed it back by 2 days). To be quite honest, we're not too worried about all of this because it's next year & it's in God's hands at this point. I say plan for the date you want, but make sure to plan just in case it can't happen. FH's aunt is a caterer & she said always be sure to read the contracts to make sure you won't lose too much money in case you need to cancel. But all in all, I think 2021 should be fine.

I got engaged in February of this year and we talked about setting a date a week later for Aug 28, 2021. I was looking for and pricing venues before this pandemic hit, so nothing has been booked yet. So I’m just waiting to see how things go in my city to decide whether we should push it to 2022 because of all of the 2020 brides rescheduling.

I got engaged recently and we set the dat for August 11th of 2021. It's definitely a little bit of a risk but I'm hoping, even if the Rona does make a resurgence, we'll miss it by doing it late in the summer. Still, you can be damn sure I'm asking every vendor I contact what the cancellation policy for something like this is. I can't afford to lose any money, especially since we're hoping to travel for the wedding. We're eloping so it'd be a bit easier logistically to postpone it but still. The date is our anniversary and really important to us. It would really be disappointing to have to push it back.

My wedding was impacted by the virus. We can be hopeful that all will be well in a couple of months, a year, 2 years but my advice to any newly engaged bride is to push your wedding as far back as you can to ensure there is a vaccine available to the masses before your wedding date, otherwise you are 100% assuming the risk that your wedding will have to be postponed or cancelled due to the virus. As Dr. Fauci always says, the virus will determine the timeline not us.

Hello I’m nishia and I’m also recently engaged and looking for a date for next year.. I’m more of a hopeful person so I picked a next year date anyways. I picked a year from my proposal which is April 24th. I really hope and wish for the best for you 😁

Congratulations on your engagement!!

It's never too early to pick your date and start your conversations or even book your vendors. With the virus, I'm sure dates for 2021 are going fast by those who are unfortunately having to postpone b/c of it. If it were me, I'd pick a date around mid-to-late 2021. With everything going on right now and with the talk of COVID-19 possibly becoming a seasonal thing, and b/c there is no current vaccine, there is a chance of something like this happening again around this time next year - I don't think to the scale it is at now, but something similar could happen.

I will say, my husband and I's wedding venue did require us to have wedding insurance - which included cancellation, for us to book with them. For some venues it will be required and others it may not. For any venue you're thinking about, I'd say ask them about it. I'm sure after what has happened this year with the virus, many wedding venues may update their contracts to include pandemics as a reason for cancellation or rescheduling. I think most probably don't have that in their contracts yet.

We got engaged in February 2020. We were hoping for a July 2021 wedding, but it does seem like more & more 2020 weddings are understandably moving to 2021. Also, with the unknowns of the virus, it’s a mental obstacle to begin the planning process. I think we’ll end up with a 2022 date given the circumstances.