Wedding Planning Stress during COVID

breemcmorris

Anyone else have an August wedding and struggling with the looming stress of planning a wedding that might not even happen? I feel like there are 100 different ways this pandemic can pan out and 100 different ways we could have to plan around it while juggling my guest's expectation, potential loss of money (because insurance companies are legit the worst and won't cover anything related to the virus), and the safety of our friends/family. Their safety is the most important to us, so if we loose money to make sure they're safe, that's ok with us but it's still stressful. It's also a bit of a double whammy because we live in DC and the wedding is here but all of my fiance's family in in California and all of mine are in Michigan, so even if the wedding goes on, we have no idea about travel restrictions. 

And my wedding dress fitting/customization keeps getting pushed back, along with my hair and make up trials, my meetings with my wedding planner and florist/vendors for decor and tables. With everything getting pushed back I'm afraid my dress won't get done in time or everything will look thrown together (if our wedding goes on as scheduled). 

I honestly don't want to reschedule, I'd rather cancel and just go to the court house (if they're open by then) or somehow have a tiny wedding or virtual wedding but I don't know anyone who could help us with a live stream or anything. 

Anyone else having similar thoughts and stress? 

-Bree

banana468

I'm already married for 12 years so I'd like to offer you the perspective as a married person and potential guest:

-I have a vacation in August planned and we do not plan to take a flight.   If timing was an issue we wouldn't be going.    Have you talked to family and friends to see how they feel about flying in August?  Do they have flights and/or are they comfortable taking them? 

-If your wedding is in August you' be sending invitations sometime in the next 5-8 weeks.   Do you have any confirmations about things being open yet? 

-Can you re-book and still keep your $?   At this point, I would consider doing that if you have too many unknowns.

breemcmorris

Thanks for your input! These are things we've already talked about. The sad thing is is that, when it comes to traveling, everyone's answer is "I don't know yet." And that's the big thing with us, we won't really know anything for certain until end of June of July and just have to wait and see and do what we can.

No one can give us any confirmations about being open at all because of the executive orders in place and there are now going to be new laws and regulations for venues and vendors, even restaurants. There isn't a "post-COVID" era, things won't go back to normal until there is a vaccine, so it's a whole new game now, for everyone involved. 

Since 98% of our wedding party and guest are out of town (like Cali, Hawaii, Germany, etc) we are treating the timeline for invites like a destination wedding, so 3 month ahead of time, which is now, with the RSVP date by July 10, as my wedding is the first week of August. 

We have a wedding planner and are constructing alternatives, but the stressful this is it's too unknown to know what we should do at this point. Honestly, just a stressful time and wondering if anyone could sympathize. 

Thanks. 

knottie0d24ed9c44ed3407

Girl, YES!!!

Our wedding is scheduled for August 22nd of this year and I am at my wits end. I atruly cannot handle this stress anymore. I feel like one day I am optimistic and feel like everything will work out and things will be clearer and then the next day I turn on the news or read an article and I get all hopeless again  

My fiance and I decided to wait until June 15th to make a definite decision but I already reached out to my venue coordinator and luckily we will not have any rescheduling fees if we do need to postpone. I am at this point thinking of just moving the celebration to next summer if things are still bad because I don't want to risk having to postpone AGAIN if there ends up being a second wave in the fall/winter. And hopefully we will be able to have a smaller gathering (probably just family) for the legal ceremony on our actual date.

Hang in there! These are seriously crazy time but know that there are so many bride-to-be's that are standing with you in solidarity and no matter what happens, things will work out for the better!

- Victoria

knottie0d24ed9c44ed3407

Also, I forgot to mention that my wedding is in Michigan and I live in Texas...so two states where things are not looking too great at the moment lol

knottie51caf3ef140a2862

I totally understand how you feel! My wedding is August 15 and it is all so stressful. As of right now we are proceeding as planned but we will make a final decision sometime in June I think. I'm in Ohio 

britanydonell

I'm a NYC bride (originally May 30th but pushed back to October 24th)...i have definitely had some ups and downs. We're proceeding with our Oct 24th date, and I'm still leery about it all. However, I'm trying to keep the faith and pray that things calm down by fall. I want to believe that God will provide a light at the end of the tunnel. It's really dim now, but let's pray for a breakthrough. Hang in there!