Firstly, from everyone here at National Event Hire, we hope you and your loved ones are safe and well during these unprecedented times. Our daily life as we know it has been completely transformed due to this Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, I’m sure we don’t need to remind you of this. This is a challenging time for everyone, but in particular we feel the pain and frustration of couples that were planning to get married during this period. We are gutted for all these couples and have decided to write this blog in the hope of reducing even a little of your stress.
If you take one thing away from reading this blog, take this. You are postponing your wedding, not cancelling! You will still be walking down the aisle surrounded by your loved ones, it’s just the date that’s changing. Postponing and cancelling may appear to be an insignificant difference in words, but at the moment it’s a massive difference. Think of ‘cancelling’ as a negative trigger word.
From what we can gather, the vast majority in the industry are more than willing to work with you in postponing your wedding. Many suppliers have substantially reduced fees to postpone the wedding, with some waving them completely. We are all in this together, and if you use language such as postpone rather than cancel, and work with the suppliers, everything should be well. Using the word ‘cancel’ has such negative connotations, that it can lead to suppliers, big or small, sticking to the cancellation terms you previously agreed to, which will result in you losing out on deposits paid. Working together and being empathetic will go a long way for all parties involved for an outcome that is mutually beneficial for both suppliers and couples alike.
It’s important for wedding couples to understand the impact this will have on suppliers also. This is sure to have a substantial financial impact on them for the next couple of years when hopefully we will have long since forgotten about the coronavirus. If a couple postpones a wedding, it means the supplier cannot provide their service to any other couple on this future date and therefore reduces earnings. There is a high possibility that premium dates are booked up for the next year and maybe two, so what we recommend is being open to off peak season alternatives and perhaps even midweek dates.
Below, we have put together several tips for wedding couples who are in this unfortunate position in the hope that we can be of some help to you.
Tip 1: Communicate with all your suppliers
This might be a given, but the most important thing you need to do is to contact each of your suppliers for your wedding and clarifying the situation with them. This includes your wedding venue, photographer, videographer, florists, band, DJ, wedding cake and wedding car suppliers, and any other supplier you have booked and lined up for your big day. Just make sure you keep in mind the wording of your conversations as mentioned above.
There are no standardised guidelines for suppliers, as this situation is unprecedented, so discussing your individual wedding with each of them is a must. We would recommend that you or your partner should communicate with each supplier directly to avoid confusion or messages being lost in translation. Equally, these suppliers will be in contact with many wedding couples every day, so we do recommend you keep a written record of everything. You can follow up any phone conversation with an email summing up the conversation and getting them to confirm any agreement.
Efficient communication now will help ensure your wedding day is still everything you have ever dreamed it would be, whenever that date may be.
Tip 2: Communicate with your Priest / Registrar / Solemniser
Wherever it is you are planning to have your ceremony, whether it’s a church, wedding venue or registry office, you need to discuss your arrangements at this time. Before rescheduling a date with your wedding venue, you need to speak to the priest, registrar or solemniser to agree on a date that will suit them. Unless you want to get legally married on a separate day to the celebrations, there is no point rearranging a date with your wedding venue, to later find out you can’t get married on this day. Therefore, to avoid extra confusion, we recommend your priest, registrar or solemniser should be one of your first port of calls. Once you have a selection of possible dates, you can then go to your other suppliers to see what date will work best for everyone.
Tip 3: Communicate with your guests
It’s important to keep your guests in the loop about the postponement of your wedding. They will undoubtedly understand your situation, but it is best to be clear with them especially those who may need to rearrange travel and accommodation plans. We recommend sending out a group email to all your guests and then calling any key individuals directly or those you do not have email addresses for. A wedding is a group effort involving many friends and family, so giving a quick call or text to those key individuals to keep them updated would go a long way.
Finally, don’t panic and keep perspective! Everything is up in the air at the moment and there is a lot of uncertainty, but just remember no matter what happens, you can still look forward to the wedding of your dreams in the future.
National Event Hire
If you need help with organising your wedding, hiring furniture, or adding equipment required for your dream day, contact the experts at National Event Hire on freephone on 1800 579 579, email us at info@neh.ie, or click here.
