With the COVID-19 pandemic, postponing your wedding might becoming more of a reality. Many couples are contemplating this idea right now, and many couples have already made the decision to change the date.
Jill Rashotte, of Kitchener Ontario, was engaged on December 15, 2017. Since then, she has been planning her wedding for March 28, 2020. With a new date set of October 16, 2020, Jill can now share her process with us.
What were your first thoughts/emotions when you realized you had to change your date?
When I first realized that postponing the wedding could be my reality, it was on Tuesday March 10, 2020. That week I had been feeling very sick and had symptoms of the virus, which made me worry this even further. By Friday March 13, 2020 I knew our wedding was not going to go on as planned for our date. My first reaction was complete devastation and sadness. I couldn’t comprehend how something I had been planning for over two years had simply been called off in a matter of days.
Did you think about cancelling?
Cancelling the wedding all together was never in my mind. When I knew that March 28, 2020 wasn’t going to be our wedding date, I knew I wanted to postpone because I had put so much time/effort into this and I still wanted my fairytale wedding experience.
What was your first move? Who did you speak with first?
On Tuesday March 10, 2020 I contacted our venue, Hockley Valley, to see what my options were before any public bans were called/before non-essential businesses were forced to close. They had advised that unless the government would call for a ban, they would continue with my date. I wasn’t pleased with this because we already had family from overseas who wouldn’t be able to make it, along with many guests with health issues who had expressed concerns with attending.
Our venue did advise they would allow us to wait on our final numbers until 4 days before the wedding to ensure we had an accurate number of who could attend.
Tell us about the process after that.
On March 14th, 2020 Hockley Valley confirmed that we wouldn’t be able to hold the wedding due to the governments new guidelines and they allowed us to take until June 2020 to advise what date we wanted to postpone our wedding until. They advised the wedding still had to take place within the fiscal year, so we could only postpone until March 31, 2021.
We then went through the dates Hockley had available for the fall of 2020 and reached out to our vendors: florist, photographer, DJ, officiant, hair and make-up.
How was your experience with your vendors? Did you get to keep all of them?
Our vendors were incredible! Working with us on different dates they were all so accommodating during such a stressful time in my life. We were able to keep everyone we originally hired, and nothing had to change in that regard. Everyone accommodated: Petals Flower Co.(florist), Adam Sulkers from Willow Tree Weddings (photographer), Tam Duong from Impact DJ, Officiant Amanda Gulka-Armstrong from All Seasons, Krista Martin from Just Be Hair and Makeup and Hanna Virdi from Virdi Artistry (makeup).
Now that things have been postponed, how are you feeling?
Now that everything is sorted with my venue and vendors, I now need to communicate my new date to the guests. We are doing this via Paperless Post, which will be easier than having to re-print new invitations and everything can be tracked online.
One thing we are struggling with right now is, do we get married this coming Saturday as planned (which our officiant agreed to facilitate) or do we let our marriage license expire and get a new one when city hall reopens? This is something I also need to get in contact with city hall about to see if they would give us a new license free of charge due to the circumstances.
I honestly feel so fortunate for the quick responses from all the people we hired to make this day special!
Overall, I realize how lucky I am to have such an amazing fiancé who has lifted my spirits as much as he possibly could during this time. He has been my rock and I am so fortunate that we are in this together. Although, we are not celebrating on our original date, I know we will get that chance again in October and I cannot wait!
I sympathize so much with you guys for your wedding being postponed! My fiancé and I have just had to make this incredibly difficult decision for ourselves as our wedding was supposed to be in May. Thanks for sharing your process! Ours was fairly similar!
We hope everything is going well with your new date. You will have a beautiful wedding soon!