Covid-19 : Dealing with Your Wedding Suppliers When Postponing
It is sure to be overwhelming; you’ve had to cancel or rearrange your wedding, notify all of your guests and try to find a new date because of Coronavirus. And you still need to speak with your wedding partners to try to reshuffle their services!
Don’t worry we are here to help you with suggestions of how to manage your suppliers, and the important questions to ask your wedding vendors to help to rearrange your wedding. It is normal to feel disheartened - however don’t forget that thousands of couples, vendors and wedding venues are all in same boat, we’ll all get through it together!
Wedding Insurance
First things first. Let’s talk about wedding insurance.
If you have wedding insurance, check the terms and conditions on what exactly is covered.
Some policies will cover for a cancellation under any circumstance, some will cover changes in circumstance due to Coronavirus, and others may have more restrictive policies. Check your policy so you know what you are dealing with when you start to speak with your wedding suppliers.
If you don’t have wedding insurance, speak with a few wedding insurance suppliers to try to understand what Covid-19 has meant for their policies. For instance, some suppliers have stopped offering new policies, or have exclusions specifically relating to the virus.
Be Patient
Yes, you have had to cancel or postpone your big day, but bear in mind that most wedding suppliers are dealing with multiple cancellations or date changes. They will be dealing with numerous questions from several couples, so be patient during your communication. Don’t expect an immediate response, and appreciate they may well be pulling together their contingency plans for various coronavirus-related wedding situations – things are still changing every day.
Read Contracts & Website T&Cs
If you have already signed a contract with any of your wedding suppliers the best place to start is to read this document. It may or may not cover off some of the answers to your questions, but it also gives you a good idea of what you may need to ask when it comes to each specific wedding vendor.
A lot of wedding suppliers will have their standard T&Cs on their websites, again it is worthwhile reading, and may raise some considerations you may not have even thought of.
Finally, many suppliers will have posted a blanket commentary or Covid-19 response on their website or social media which already answers some of your concerns, so check vendor’s websites and social channels regularly.
If you have taken the steps above, you will then be armed with all of the available information, and can ensure you are asking the right questions in the right way.
Email First
Start off with an email to your suppliers (unless of course your wedding was meant to take place in the next few weeks) – they can then respond when they have the answers, or the time. Emailing also means you have all communications in writing in case you need to refer to it in the future.
Take the time to list out all questions very clearly, not only are you managing to get down all of your concerns, but you are encouraging your wedding vendors to be methodical in their response to your clearly outlined questions.
Standard Questions for all Suppliers
Below are our recommended questions for all suppliers once you have read through and wedding contracts or website T&Cs.
What is your rescheduling/cancellation policy related to the Coronavirus?
Are there any fees associated with postponing our wedding?
What availability do you have if we do reschedule our wedding?
Can we apply our current deposit to a new wedding date?
Does a change of date to a different season affect the timings of our day?
You will of course have specific questions for other vendors such as your florist (consider seasonality), cake maker, wedding dress maker, wedding planner (which vendors are you contacting?), and others, however the questions above are a good place to start.
We hope the above advice will help to ease uncertainty as you continue to try to plan your wedding amid the Coronavirus pandemic. Please to bear in mind that your wedding suppliers and vendors are going through this at the same time as you, and like you, won’t have dealt with anything like this previously – we are all learning!
Let’s work together to find solutions – we will all get there in the end!