Should We Postpone Our Wedding? 2021 Edition
Hi friends!
Well, we had a pretty good ride there with consistent blogging from April through July but as weddings got busier again, I sort of fell off the wagon. If you haven’t been following along on my adventures on Instagram, a bought my first home in July and have been renovating it myself since, so once the season wrapped up in October, I really ramped up progress on that. Someday I’ll share all of that with you here, but today I want to start a series of blog posts about the dreaded C-word, COVID, and how it may continue to impact weddings into the 2021 wedding season. Sit down, grab a drink - let’s work through some stuff.
You may or may not have read my past two blog posts on the topic, “How to Plan a Wedding During a Pandemic” and “What to Do After Postponing Your Wedding” - while most of this still rings true, now that we’ve been living in a pandemic for ten months and it’s becoming glaringly obvious that we are facing another summer of restrictions, I felt it was important to revisit the topic. If you haven’t read those, they are certainly worth reading over.
Even just re-reading those old posts, I feel like they were written in a different lifetime. Last year, when many of my couples were starting to postpone, it was not even a consideration on any of our radars that 2021 weddings would also be facing potential restrictions. We were all so optimistic, and while I am still trying to keep cautiously optimistic, the one thing that I’ve learned from COVID is that nobody has the answers. Nothing is an absolute certainty. Nobody has survived this thing unscathed. So many couples have been robbed of their wedding planning excitement and the possibility of their dream weddings without making compromises to be within restrictions. Many vendors have already faced a year of little-to-no wedding income, and are now facing another season of financial uncertainty. A lot of us even feel like we’ve lost our purpose - or maybe that’s just me. For some vendors, a second season of postponements may mean them closing their doors. In the grand scheme of things, PEI has fared so well and we were rewarded for that by being able to have socially distanced gatherings with much more minimal restrictions than other places. But, we did not survive unscathed and as an industry we did see businesses that didn’t survive.
This is going to be the first of multiple blog posts on this topic, in which I’ll concentrate on the decision to postpone, with future posts answering more of your questions about invitations, restrictions, dancing, etc.
Right now, many couples are making the difficult decision as to whether or not they are prepared to wait it out to see how the vaccine roll out goes, or to postpone. A lot can happen in the next four, six, eight months. I have already had a handful of couples postpone, and on the flip side, I have a lot of couples holding out hope. Neither is wrong, nobody can make this decision for you. My intent with this post is not to push anyone to decide on way or the other, but to hopefully help provide you with some of the tools you’ll need to get closer to that decision. I speak with couples every day who are planning on getting married in PEI but live elsewhere, and so they feel out of the loop and need guidance on the PEI restrictions and what they should be considering.
Current restrictions for weddings on PEI are as follows: 50 people plus officiant, guests must wear masks, guests must practice social distancing, and no dancing is permitted other than the couple’s first dance and parent dances. Receptions can follow restaurant guidelines with masks being removed while you are sitting at a table eating and drinking. While last summer we were able to get to a point where up to three cohorts of 50 were allowed, there has been no word yet as to when we can expect weddings to once again be allowed to see multiple cohorts. These cohorts had to be separated by six feet with visible markings, and any couples with more than one cohort must have an approved operational plan. Single cohorts require an operational plan to be written, but not submitted. PEI is currently not accepting visitors without prior approval, and anyone entering the province faces a mandatory 14-day isolation. The Atlantic bubble has been suspended until at least mid-February.
Now that you know the restrictions, ask yourself what ones you are willing to live with, and which ones are a deal breaker. Is the one thing you’ve been waiting for your dance? Is looking out into the crowd and seeing your guests wearing masks a dealbreaker? Can you cut your guest list down if you have to? If travel restrictions are still in place, can your key guests get here, and isolate if they need to? Many of you may have answered one way to these questions last year, but are willing to accept them this year - priorities have changed for so many through all of this. What is an absolute non-negotiable for you?
Reach out to your vendors. If your wedding is this summer, it may seem early, but I urge you to reach out to your vendors to make them aware of your situation, and to find out their updated COVID-19 policies. I have talked to so many couples lately who have been pushing off thinking of the wedding because it brings dread - and believe me when I say, I get it. I get it so bad, you have no idea how bad I get it. Your vendors get it too, they feel for you. We have all had to make some very difficult decisions on COVID policies. Some vendors that made exceptions in 2020 may not be able to offer those exceptions again in 2021 - and some may, but you need to empower yourself with the proper information, as this will help you make your decision. Also consider that your vendors are holding a date for you, and if there is any consideration in your mind that you may postpone, letting them know that is a possibility for you may help them to recoup the surge in lost income they are about to face. Many of us are still hearing from new couples who are locally dead-set on getting married no matter the restrictions, so letting your vendors know you are on the fence will mean the difference between them turning away another couple, and letting the other couple know they may be available but they’ll need to get back to them.
Decide when your cut-off is. After you’ve contacted your vendors, you should have a better idea of how long you have to make your decision. While some vendors are offering backup dates, many vendors are not able to extend that practice into a second season, which means the longer you wait, the less dates that may be available to you. I don’t say this to rush you, just to again reinforce how important it is to chat with your vendors! Unfortunately there is no straight answer that will work for every vendor’s business model, and these policies are evolving and changing daily. If you are travelling for your wedding or you have guests that are travelling, your cut-off date may be a little earlier than those who are not in that boat, as your guests need adequate time to either make or change their travel and accommodation reservations. Talk with your guests that are travelling, and find out when they need to know in order to attend, if they are able to.
A big question I asked everyone last year was, “If you postpone today, and your wedding date passes and you could have gotten married in a way that was acceptable to you, would you be angry that you now have to wait, or happy that you were relieved of the stress of the unknown for the last however many months?” If wedding planning is becoming so stressful to you that you can’t even think about it, that may be your sign to make a difficult decision. So many of my couples have told me that making a decision has lifted the grey cloud looming over them - whether that decision is to postpone, cut their guest list, live with restrictions, etc.
If you do decide you need to postpone, sit on the decision for a couple of days. If you feel better, chances are you’ve made the right decision. It’s absolutely completely normal to feel like you’ve been punched in the chest, and though many around you who aren’t in the same situation may not understand at all what you’re going through, I promise you that SO many do - and you’re not wrong for feeling what you’re feeling.
I’m going to wrap this up here because it’s already a 10-15 minute read, but I’ll be back with another instalment in a couple of days. If you have any topics you’d like to see covered in subsequent posts, please send me a DM on Instagram!
xo Kristina