Coronavirus and Your Wedding
as an industry we’ve banded together to offer solutions which help you
Have your wedding plans been affected by COVID-19? Are you one of the thousands of Australian couples who’ve been forced to postpone or change your plans?
You’re in good company. We’re all in this together. I’m not going to say anything about ‘unprecedented times’ or the like because to be frank I’ve had about enough of that wording for a while.
However, they are. And as an industry we’ve banded together to offer solutions which help you, whilst also helping us sustain our businesses.
We’re currently bracing for 6 months of interrupted weddings.
I’ve to date had twenty postponements. Twenty. And I’m banking on another 5- 10. As I book out 12-18 months ahead, this week has been a bit of a Tetris game as far as rescheduling.
So what’s the issue?
Basically, as more people postpone and get moved to a date next season, the less availability there is. By 2021, we’re going to be trying to accommodate twice the weddings in the same time space.
What does that mean for me?
It means you may have to consider your wedding being on a day other than the traditional Saturday. In order for weddings to go ahead, something has to give: the timing or the structure (did anyone else sing Blink 182 there?)
Timing: Maybe it’s a Friday, a Sunday or my personal fave- Thursday. Why Thursday? From a guest’s point of view- they have the day off the Friday and then the weekend ahead still. Total winner.
It will also mean a much higher likelihood of you being able to transfer your entire team of vendors across to a new date. The majority of us are waiving any transfer fees for this (hasthtag unprecedented times).
Structure: Maybe you stick with a Saturday but it’s a morning wedding or an evening wedding. This will work for me as a celebrant but the downside is it is highly unlikely you will be able to retain your other vendors. Why? Because a photographer is at a wedding for the entire day and into the night and they can’t be in two places at once.
As such you go back into the mix with all the new season couples to find and engage new vendors. (Good luck!) This will be an extremely competitive market with the double down on weddings for next season. The other negative is- you will likely lose your booking fee.
So, weekday weddings for the win! Keep your vendors, don’t lose fees and mega bonus- support small business.
How else can I support the wedding industry?
If you’re a postponing couple:
-Offer to pay out your balance now. You were due to pay it anyway and it means there’s nothing to pay down the track. It also provides some much needed income for your vendors during this downturn.
-If you’ve postponed and you hadn’t considered things like videography, live music or a photo booth maybe now is the time to book them in. They’re an amazing addition to a wedding, vendors need the income and now you have extra time to save more dollars.
*See my recs for videographers and live music/ DJ’s in the Band Mates section of my site.
-Follow us and engage with us on socials and recommend us to others.
-Most of all, just be kind, considerate and flexible. There have been many stories of couples abusing vendors for not having the capacity to accommodate straight transferring their wedding to a Saturday in March 2021. This is completely unacceptable. There are only so many Saturdays in peak months and you can bet they’re booked already.
Be reasonable and remember what is important. Getting married to the person you love. With the people you love there. Being able to hug, kiss, shake hands and share a boozy d floor.
The day is not important.