Postponed due to Coronavirus? Tips for Rescheduling Your Wedding

Postponed due to Coronavirus? Tips for Rescheduling Your Wedding

Planning a wedding can be stressful enough, it is more so with the uncertainty of trying to plan through the Coronavirus pandemic. We’re here to help with some tips on what to do if you must reschedule your wedding.

In the state of Massachusetts, Governor Baker has ordered all non-essential businesses to close and banned gatherings of 10 or more through April 7th.   The CDC has recommended cancelling any event of 50 people or more through May 10th, to minimize the spread of the Coronavirus. If your event is during this time frame, you have some big decisions to make and we at the Four Points by Sheraton Norwood are here to guide you through it.

Our Catering Sales Managers are here to help. With ourinclusive wedding packages, we will take care of finding and moving your event to a new date, alerting our package vendors of your new date, and getting a new rooming block set up for you.

If you need to reschedule your wedding due to the Coronavirus:

  • Reach out to your venue to find out how they are handling rebooking events.  If you are having the ceremony at a church or temple, make sure to check in with them as well.  Try to get a few dates where both venues are available so that you can line up with the rest of your vendors.  
  • Check in with immediate family and friends to make sure there are no conflicts with your key players.  This is a great opportunity to set up a group chat with your bridal party, social distancing doesn’t mean you can’t all have a glass of wine together while video chatting! 
  • Make a list of every vendor and item you have for your wedding that will need to be rescheduled. Make sure to include attire, transportation, honeymoon, rehearsal dinner etc.
  • Email each of those vendors to see if their availability lines up with the dates your venue has. If you run into scheduling conflicts, check your contract and see what options you have.  Ask the vendor if you they have any other options to accommodate you.  Maybe your main photographer or DJ isn’t available, but they have a business partner that is.  
  • Book your reschedule date as you can as there are many events having to reschedule due to the coronavirus.

You may find that you’re now considering an off-peak date, whether that be a Thursday, Friday or Sunday.Make the best of it, we are all going to be ready to celebrate when the Coronavirus pandemic is over, regardless of the day!

How to tell your guests of the date change:

You have your new date, now it is time to spread the word.Don’t go at this alone, call on your friends and family to help.

  • If you have email addresses for everyone you can send out an electronic “Save the New Dateâ€. 
  •  If your original invitations have gone out, and RSVP’s already in, we recommend looking into online RSVP’s.  Websites like zola.com are set up just for this and will make the transition easy for you. 
  • If you haven’t printed or mailed your invitations, simply change the date!

Start planningâ€â€again:

In an ideal world, you will be able to take everything you have already planned and copy everything to your new date. However, there are a few things to consider if you are changing seasons.

  • Reach out and rely on the expertise of your florist.  Since flowers are a seasonal product, you may need (or want) to change some options to keep within your budget.  
  • Wedding Party attire – take into consideration the temperature change and make sure what you have planned will still works.  A lightweight linen suit may be great for May, but a bit chilly if you’ve changed dates to December!
  • Honeymoon – if you’ve already planned your honeymoon, make sure to consider the weather and also potential hurricane season if you’re moving to the fall or winter.  Bonus: getting to research sunny warm places and dream vacations while you’re stuck at home!

Most importantly, practice self-care during these stressful times:

  • Focus on the things that you can control. Make a list and address each task that you can do now.Know that through this, there are going to be some things that are out of your control.
  • Put wedding planning aside and spend time with your fiancà doing the things you love.
  • Create your support system and check in.Social distancing doesn’t mean you have to shut yourself off.Video calls have made it easy to still have quality time with your besties†from the comfort of your couch!

While this is certainly not what you envisioned in planning a wedding, we’re here to guide you through it. At the end of all this, you’ll be walking down the aisle to marry the love of your life.