It’s a crazy time to be living in. I certainly did not expect a pandemic to occur right now, and I’m sure this is the last thing any spring 2020 brides and grooms expected either. My heart BREAKS for all of the couples who need to cancel or postpone their weddings due to covid-19 and all the new ordinances and regulations on gathering sizes that have come along with it. I know that this time can be so difficult and stressful. Planning a wedding is stressful enough without a pandemic! I’ve put together a few creative solutions to rescheduling your wedding for you to hopefully ease at least a little bit of stress during this time.

Postpone Your Wedding

The most obvious answer to everything that is happening right now is to postpone your wedding. Luckily, most vendors are being so understanding and flexible with their rescheduling policies. Please reach out to your priority (or most expensive) vendors before deciding on your new date! You can cut down on the back and forth with your vendors by sending out a google doc with date options where your vendors can submit the form after checking off which dates they are available. If your venue and vendors are super in demand, you may need to reschedule for a Friday or Sunday or the off-season. Off-seasons or less busy times of the year for weddings depend on where you are located. Here in Indiana, our off-season starts in mid-November. Typically, July and August are a little less busy as well.

I know that this can be such a sad experience since I’m sure that you have been looking forward to marrying your best friend for so long! The last thing you want to do is wait even longer. You can make the experience a little better by deciding not to just sit around being sad on your wedding day. Make it a special day with the love of your life if you can! Go out and do something to make the day special and celebrate your love, whether that means going out for a hike and picnic, writing personal vows to say to each other that day in a location that is meaningful to you, or just dancing in your living room to your wedding song. Every day is a good day if you get to spend it with the one you love. You can make the day that was supposed to be your wedding day, a day full of love and joy even if it didn’t go how you imagined that it would.

Elope Now. Have a Party Later

This is a personal favorite choice of mine. Why? Because this is what my husband and I did. As soon as we got engaged and started planning our wedding, we realized that we didn’t want to wait 8 months to be married, but we still wanted to plan a party to celebrate. So what was our solution? We had a small, intimate ceremony about 3 weeks after we got engaged. My parents and our best friends were there, and Andry’s parents skyped in from Madagascar. That day was SO meaningful to us! 8 months later, we had our big wedding where we said our vows and celebrated with all of our friends and family, and Andry’s parents came from Madagascar to be with us in person. It’s becoming so popular for couples to get legally married before their wedding day, and there are so many different reasons for it! For some, it’s logistical or religious. Maybe a couple wants to live together but isn’t comfortable living together before they’re married. For some, they feel less pressure or stress on their wedding day knowing that they are already married and this is just a celebration for fun. I promise, you can make BOTH days special and amazing. Plus, I can tell you from experience that there is a super fun perk to this option: you get to celebrate TWO anniversaries every year! I’m a firm believer that you can never have too many excuses to celebrate your relationship.

So how does this work with your vendors? I can’t speak to every vendor’s policies, but I can tell you what I’m doing for my couples. I’m allowing my couples to split the coverage they’ve booked between two dates. Usually that looks like 1 hour of coverage now and 7 hours later or 2 hours now and 6 hours later. You’ll probably only need ceremony coverage, bride and groom photos, and a few guest photos for your small wedding. If worse came to worse and we didn’t have enough time for all the photos you want for your big wedding later, I always gift my couples at least an hour of coverage anyway, so I wouldn’t worry if you’re one of my couples ;)

Live Stream Your Wedding

Another great option if you don’t want to reschedule your wedding is to reduce your guest count and set up a live stream for guests who aren’t able to make it! This works super well so that all of your friends and family can celebrate with you, but you’re not putting anyone at risk. If older or immunocompromised family members don’t feel safe attending, they can still be part of all of the action virtually.

If You Have to Cancel

One of my couples had to cancel their wedding entirely, and we’ve been coming up with some solutions so they can still at least have the wedding portraits that they have been dreaming of. It’s hard to make solid plans with how quickly the current state of events is changing, but we are tentatively planning to take some portraits on their wedding day, just the three of us; take portraits at (what would have been) their wedding venue at a later dater; and take photos at a celebration that they’ll have at a separate time. We had actually already taken all of the bridal detail photos before the wedding day, so they at least have photos of the details they spent so much time working on.

I promise that no matter what, there are always creative solutions so that you can still have what you dreamed of and so that you can still have an amazing and special wedding day (or days). Hopefully your vendors are more than willing to work with you to make your dreams come true.