How to go ahead if it might not happen

Can you wait till closer to the date and see how thing are? like wait a month or two im sure we will be in a better state and you can continue your wedding planning.

Hi date twin!!! We are trying to stay super positive (easier for my fiance than me!) and hopeful; we haven't doubted our big day yet. Our friend is doing our invites and so we haven't printed yet but we know we are sending them all out in late September (instead of August) regardless and we will keep hoping for the best 🙏. I also already have my dress as I purchased it in November. It came in in only 4 months even though they told me 6! To be honest, all the big stuff we already have our deposits down - for hair and makeup we only had to give a credit card number to secure the spots but no payments had to be made as it's at a salon. Feel free to message me to chat some more!

Personally I would have the design for my invitations ready to go and saved somewhere so when or if you are ready to move forward you just have to get in contact with the vendor. I think you could do this with a lot of your planning, tentatively having things picked out and then just knowing if you need X by Dec I need to order this particular items by Y taking into account delays if it's coming across the border, etc.


Online invitations are also an option. We had originally planned to get online invitations so we could just email them out to everyone as I know a lot of people toss them and it seemed a waste. We had them "designed" and saved so when it was time to send them out they were there and ready. Then covid happened and our original plan of 30 guests became five which has since been raised to ten so now our parents and kids can attend. We never sent out the invitations as we didnt need to and we arent out any money, although I am sad I didnt get to use them as they fit our wedding site perfectly haha.

Hold off on the purchases until you know your ready to get it. Alternative to shopping is renting a dress for a day so you don't break the bank and return it the next day. It helps to save more and look beautiful at the same time. The venue space can be decorated with minimal décor to keep its natural outlook and backdrop behind the head table.

View quoted message

How big is your planned wedding and have you talked to the venue about potential roadblocks? It may help give you a sense of ease knowing how the venue is dealing with things.

View quoted message Thanks for the replies! Really helps to know what others are doing. On the bright side I guess the situation forces us to focus on what’s most important.

Potential fellow December wedder here! We've only made payments to all essential wedding things so far. We have our deposit at the venue, who has also agreed to soft hold a backup date for us but terms of our final contract (final count, meal choices, any add ons) have not been decided. We just have a minimum spend, which is within our budget and doable, even if we're only allowed 50 people max by our alt date (though at such low numbers, it'll be one baller feast for our guests). My guys and I have our suits and bride has her dress stored in a room that I'm not allowed to go into. I figured, no matter the style of wedding, these three things are required anyway so might as well get them early while you still can.

Our coordinator is booked, also with a soft hold on my alt date so no worries if I have to postpone. Bridesmaids still need dresses but we've decided they didn't need the exact same dress so they can pick something that works within their personal styles and budget (and worst case scenario, they can get something off the rack if they're short on time). We did regret putting a down payment on the makeup and hair artist but that's more because we're having second thoughts on people putting their tools on our faces due to covid. Things like DJ, decor, flowers, and other wedding day vendors will be procured when we have a solid plan for moving ahead on a particular date.

Even before the pandemic, we chose to use evites over paper invites so that will save us a ton. Thankfully, 90% of our guest list is within the GTA so even if we send them out in the fall, it wouldn't be a hindrance.

View quoted message

So my dress actually hasn't arrived yet. They told me 8-9 months from the date it was ordered so it won't be here until probably September but I will definitely be checking with them for storage.

View quoted message Have you checked with the bridal store?I was able to store mine for $50 but that was last August and now that we have postponed I’ve been avoiding calling them as they are most likely going to make me pick it up and store elsewhere 😳

Hey! We are also in the same boat - ours is December 5 and i've had the same questions.

Our plan was to wait as long as possible to send out the Save the Dates which we sent them out 2 weeks ago. We also sent out a COVID-10 insert that had our wedding website information along with a note that "things might change and invitations might be delayed". We also didn't want to waste money and we figured that with everything going on, at least if people knew are date, we wouldn't have to send out our invites as soon as you normally would. If you could do a simple save the date card, it would cut costs a lot and then wait until the latest possible time to send out your invites. Perhaps create a wedding website as well so you can invite your guests through this - it will save a lot of money.

I purchased my dress in January so I can't really do much about that but worst case, we will postpone and I'll have to store it somewhere. I think that you should purchase a dress regardless because if you're going to elope, you will still want a nice dress to wear and they take several months to come depending where you go.

At this point, I think we will be good to go but there are so many variables and unknowns. For us, it's really about the boarders .. my FH is from Connecticut so his entire family, friends, wedding party is from the US.

Good luck to you and hope you can figure everything out.

Perhaps for invitations you could skip paper invites and just do paperless electronic invites... that would save the cost (and the planet).

Hey Erin! The uncertainty is stressful for sure. I’ve already moved my wedding to next summer so I’m not in exactly the same boat—hopefully some other December 2020 brides and grooms will chime in with their thoughts. But I totally get why you are hesitant to sink more cash into the wedding, especially into date-specific items like invitations.



As for buying a dress, would you maybe consider wearing it even if you end up eloping? If you browse around the WW forums you’ll see that many other Covid-impacted brides who eloped or had intimate ceremonies still wore their wedding dresses. It definitely adds something special and makes for absolutely stunning photos. If you pick a style of dress you’d be comfortable wearing to a wedding or elopement, you’ll at least be guaranteed to get some use out of it!

For the invites, your best bet is probably just to put that off as long as possible. Hopefully by autumn we will have a better sense of what the Covid situation might look like in December. At the same time I also think it would be wise to give your guests a heads up so they can mark their calendars, especially since your wedding is around the holidays! If you haven’t already mailed out save the dates, perhaps you could send an electronic save the date ASAP (going digital will obviously cut costs way down). You could include a note acknowledging that there may be a change of plans, depending on how the pandemic progresses, and telling guests they can expect a formal invitation sometime in November if the wedding is going ahead as scheduled.

If you’re still nervous that the wedding could be impacted when it does come time to order invitations, maybe opt for something fairly simple? Etsy has beautiful templates for like $10 which you can then print at Staples for ~70 cents apiece. Or you could use Vistaprint. They have beautiful designs and frequently have really good sales. Basically, you don’t need to pay a stationary professional and calligrapher (which could easily top $1000) to have beautiful invites.

I hope this is somewhat helpful! Good luck, I’m crossing my fingers for you.

Hi Erin!
What you can do to make sure you don’t spend a lot is to try to do everything as close to free as possible. Examples include: e-invites you can design yourself through Word, getting a dress you can easily elope in, DIYing decorations and florals you can find and dry naturally, getting a cake made by a friend, getting married somewhere a friend/family can loan you/outside in a place you don’t need a permit (this might be tricky for December). There’s lots available if you’re willing to put the time in. Good luck!