I had to postpone my wedding day three weeks before the big day was nothing short of emotional. Not to mention the days following up to the day my fiance (at the time) and I decided to cancel. I know I sound naive to say, I didn’t see it coming, but I honestly did not see it coming. I did not realize Coronavirus would drastically affect our wedding plans, but more importantly, EVERYONE’S lives. My FOCUS was not on COVID-19 the month before my wedding.
It’s easy to get caught up in the final deadlines and planning that you lose focus on what is going on with the rest of the world. And that’s exactly what I did.
I lost focus. Not awareness.
It’s not that I didn’t know about Coronavirus, because I did. I was actually very well aware!
My mother texted me at the beginning of March with an article about it. I couldn’t believe she did that! I thought, how dare she send me an article a month before my wedding! (Love Youuuuu Mom!) Not to mention, I even had my students writing summaries about Coronavirus because we were watching CNN10 at the start of the new year. I had family and friends texting me, asking me what am I going to do? It became REAL when my parents called to tell me it is unsafe for them to fly due to Coronavirus. Talk about heartbreaking. Devastating. Speechless.
Still, there were no thoughts on postponing my wedding day. None.
I even had my final wedding dress fitting, literally, the Thursday before the world started to shut down. I walked out of my classroom that Friday, not thinking I wouldn’t be back that following Monday.
Again, I didn’t think I would have to postpone my wedding.
I had faith to believe that I was going to have my wedding… (i’ll write about that later.)
It was the weekend of March 13th-15th that everything changed. Literally within those 72 hours. I mean EVERYTHING changed! Major sports events canceled (NBA, NHL, March Madness, I mean this is a pretty big deal!) Church is not physically meeting, retail shops closing, school closures. The list goes on.
This is when Ryan and I realized we had to make a decision.
How to Postpone Your Wedding
Talk to your soon to be spouse. First and foremost, you need to talk to your soon to be husband or wife. This is one of the first major decisions you will be making as a couple. Emotions will probably be sky-high, maybe even panic, anger, or depression. And all of that is okay. As a couple, you need to be able to express those feelings, but you also need to put those feelings to the side (temporarily) because a big decision needs to be made. Whatever you decide, postponing or canceling, the final decision should come down to you two.
Contact your wedding coordinator. That is if you have one. If you have not considered it before, I would recommend it! Our wedding coordinator was a life-saver! She handled EVERYTHING! I called her right away, Angela, from One Fabulous Event, in the San Diego Area to discuss our options. Once we decided to postpone, she immediately contacted the venue and all of our vendors. Angela conveyed everything to our vendors so lovely and appropriately. She was very clear, direct, and professional in all of her emails. I don’t think I could have worded it the way she did, or ask the right questions. Let’s face it; you probably are experiencing a lot of emotions right now to even send a professional email to all of your vendors.
Reach out to your Venue. Your venue is like the “host” for your wedding day. You need to know your new date and time before you can tell your “friends,” aka your vendors. Be prepared not to have the month or day of your dreams. You will need to be flexible. However, if you can reschedule far out enough, this may not affect you. Ryan and I rescheduled for this year, 2020, so we experienced having to be flexible. We have a new month, a new day, and a new time!
Be Flexible. I know I mentioned this already, but it is such a true statement. Not only do you need to be flexible with your venue, but you also need to be flexible with your vendors. The vendors you booked, may not be available on your new date. Or you may have a new person come on board from their company. So this will have to be a discussion that you will need to have with your soon to be spouse. Are you okay with not having that vendor? We are getting a new DJ and my hairstylist is not available. Again, you need to be flexible.
Notify your guests. You will need to inform your guests that you decided to postpone or cancel your wedding. Whether you choose to text, email, or send out a card, is entirely up to you! I don’t think you should worry about looking formal; your guests will understand. At this point, you probably already sent a Save the Date, Bridal Shower Invite, a formal Wedding Invitation, so DO NOT think you need to buy and send a formal notice. We decided to text our guests individually. We were 3 weeks away, so this was the easiest and the most effective way to let our guests know. And not a single guest cared that we texted them; their hearts were saddened that Ryan and I had to experience postponing our wedding.
Breathe. At this point, you have done all the necessary steps to postpone your wedding. Now you just need to breathe. Again, breathe. One more time, breathe. You just experienced something you did not anticipate. You did not plan to postpone your wedding day. So, give yourself some time to breathe.
These are the steps Ryan and I took to postpone our wedding day. Again, this was the weekend when our country began to shut down. I didn’t get a chance to read a blog post or read an article on how to postpone your wedding day; it just happened so quickly. I felt like I was dreaming the next day. It felt unreal at some point. But here I am, on the other side.
Please share your thoughts in the comments below. What steps did you take to postpone or cancel your wedding?
