This story was originally published on May 14, 2020, and last updated on March 5, 2021.
Some pandemic days, all I want to do is focus on the future. Other pandemic days, it feels like a struggle just to get through a single 24 hours.
And I’m not even planning a wedding. Well, at least not a wedding where I’m the bride.
So what’s a couple to do? Specifically, a couple planning to get married in 2021. How do you plan for a wedding when planning for anything feels foolish — and maybe even unwise — in this particular moment?
Read on for my advice as a professional wedding planner and if you’re a couple planning a wedding for 2022, read this.
2021 couples, set yourself a deadline
I am a professional planner, which I only mention to stress the fact that I LOVE A PLAN. So when I tell you to give yourself grace while planning your 2021 wedding, I mean it.
You have more time than it might feel like. I say this because, in my experience, the real work of planning a wedding doesn’t happen until the last 60 days.
That 60-day mark is when you can get your license (at least in the two states where I most frequently work, Oregon and Washington State). It’s also when you’ll schedule any type of final meetings, finalize a timeline (if you don’t have one, here’s a template), and correspond with vendors and any VIP guests (templates for those emails are here).
The 60-day mark also works well for the pandemic because it’s close enough to your wedding date that the health and safety regulations for your state at that time will likely be what they will be on your wedding day (i.e. you can call it). Sixty days is also far enough away that you have enough time to update your guests and your vendors.
There are two main things that might influence this deadline:
If you have payments due before 60 days. Check your contracts for this information and, when in doubt, ask the vendor in question.
If you’re losing sleep over planning your wedding. I’m not making a joke here. Even before the pandemic, laying awake at night and thinking of your wedding was a real thing. There are very good reasons why this is that I won’t get into here so for our purposes, consider this: If you are completely fatigued about your wedding, give yourself permission to change your plans. Do this even if the world tells you to wait because things could get better.
But what about hiring my wedding vendors? I should do that ASAP, right?
Yes, ideally you will have hired whomever you want to hire to work at your wedding before there are 60 days left before your wedding day. And also? I fundamentally believe that my industry stresses couples out about hiring vendors because people make worse decisions when they feel stressed.
So, if you are planning a 2021 wedding, count up how many vendors you still want to hire. If you don’t know, try this prioritization exercise with your partner. Then, count how many months you have until the 60-day out mark from your wedding.
Divide the number of vendors by the number of months left. That’s how many people you should hire per month. So, if you have five months and four vendors left, hire one a month. If you have three months and six vendors, two a month.
Of course, throw all of the above advice out the window if there’s someone you REALLY want to work at your wedding say, a particular photographer whom you love or a musician that you’ve just gotta have. If that’s the case, prioritize that person. If not having them at your wedding will negatively change how you feel about your wedding, hire ‘em!
What about all those COVID weddings that are now happening in 2021?
If you couldn’t already tell, I believe “Am I missing all the ‘good’ days and/or vendors?” is an unnecessary extra stress to put on yourself during an already stressful time.
Like I mentioned above, if you have a very particular person you want to hire for your wedding and are in a place where paying that person’s deposit makes sense, go for it.
It is true, in my experience, that vendors are, by and large, booking out 2021 (and now, 2022) faster than they ever have before. That said, please don’t feel like you have to ratchet up your wedding planning just because my industry is topsy-turvy right now. It’s just not worth it.
And if the vendor you originally contacted isn’t free, ask for their advice: “I’m bummed to hear that you’re already booked. Do you have any recommendations on other vendors who do what you do for a similar price point?” Many vendors will happily provide this information if only because no one likes to be a dead end.
What about booking a venue?
Venues are a little different than vendors if only because, in my experience, people often have stronger opinions about where they have their wedding than who they hire to work at their wedding.
Booking a venue is usually also a key part of answering one of the biggest questions in wedding planning: When is the wedding? A venue’s availability often determines a couple’s wedding date so I understand if you want to book your venue ASAP so you can at least have a date.
The only thing I suggest when booking a venue is to read that contract. When is your money due? Is it non-refundable? Does the venue have a new refund or reschedule policy because of COVID? Is that policy in black and white in the contract and not just a verbal agreement?
Ask these questions so you know your options. That’s always good advice and particularly good advice right now.
What about save-the-dates? Invites? Change-the-dates?
Before the pandemic, couples often sent their guests to pieces of communication about their wedding: a save-the-date and an invite.
The save-the-date had the bare facts about the wedding. Usually, where and when. It was sent anywhere from six to eight months before the wedding date though I’ve seen sooner and I’ve seen later both done successfully.
Next came the invite. This was the “real deal” with the confirmed ceremony start time and the registry link and pretty much everything you wanted a guest at your wedding to know. Couples often sent this two to three months before the wedding (again, I’ve seen sooner and later both done effectively).
Then, in 2020, this new thing appeared: change-the-dates. It was like a save-the-date but to notify guests that, “Hey, our original wedding isn’t happening as planned” and then some variation of “Here’s the new plan,” “We don’t have a new plan but will let you know when we do,” or “Fuck it. We already got married.”
Now, as we move into 2021 with the pandemic still on full blast, a lot of couples are asking me when they’re supposed to send all of the above correspondence.
I think they ask this question because they’re afraid of leaving their guests in the dark. They imagine this person waiting by their phone wondering, “Weren’t so-and-so getting married next year? Why haven’t I heard from them? I should blow up their phone with texts just to check-in.”
This person exists — remember, I’m a professional wedding planner and thus very familiar with our friend Curious Wedding Guest — so my advice isn’t meant to discount the urgency of telling people the important details but it is meant as a reminder to ask yourself an even more important question: “What’s healthiest for me and my partner?”
Based on my experience working with dozens of couples, I imagine the answer to “What’s healthiest for me and my partner?” is some variation of the following. I’ve created templates for all of the below with a specific focus on COVID because f you are getting married in 2021, please don’t forget about the pandemic. Those templates are here.
Create a list of your Wedding VIPs. These are the people who if they’re not at your wedding in-person, your wedding won’t feel like your wedding.
Draft a message and send it ONLY to those VIPs. The VIP message will likely be the most detailed because these are the people who MUST be at your wedding, whenever and however your wedding takes place.
Next, draft a message for everyone not on the VIP list. Remember: This isn’t about loving those people any less. It’s just about being honest about whom you and your partner most need at your wedding to make it feel like your wedding.
Draft a message and send it to everyone not on the VIP list. This message will likely be much more straightforward and simpler than what you sent to the VIPs because the feeling of your wedding isn’t contingent on the attendance of these guests. We love you guys but it’s OK if you can’t make it!
Set a reminder for your next round of guest correspondence. I recommend you only do one, maybe two more rounds of this because 1) people get confused when you ping them too much and 2) you only have so many brain cells to spend on wedding planning.
The most effective use of your time will likely be to do your next (and final) round of messages when you and your partner have a finalized plan, which, as recommended earlier in this article, I highly suggest you decide no later than 60 days before your current wedding date.
You’ll notice that none of the above requires you buy a change-the-date, save-the-date, or invite. You can, of course, use those tools to accomplish the ultimate goal (i.e. communicating with your guests) but it is not required.
Texts, emails, digital invites work just as well. Lord, I’ve even seen people use Facebook groups for this. The point is not to necessarily make the message look good. The point is to get the message out in the clearest, most effective, best for you and your partner way.
That said, the biggest downside to a digital option is that it doesn’t support your local small print shop. If you and your partner want to support your local small print shop, maybe buy something else from them (i.e. thank-you cards, menus, invites to another future gathering, etc.)
Additional tips
Here’s my best advice that didn’t fit earlier in this article:
Make a COVID-19 wedding safety policy. I’ve got a free template here.
Review all of your contracts. This doesn’t just apply to your venue, as I wrote above. Before you sign anything, be sure you know when your money is due, what is and isn’t non-refundable, and what the policy is around refunds and rescheduling. Vendors and venues think A LOT about this stuff, particularly with COVID, and a quality vendor or venue will have quality answers.
Hear what this couple is doing. The season finale of my podcast, The Teardown, is an interview with a couple who is currently planning to get married in August 2021. Listen here.
Review my other COVID resources. They’re all here.
Check in with each other. The most important thing you can do while wedding planning during COVID is to make sure you still want to marry the person you are planning to marry. That sounds stupid but seriously? If you find that wedding planning just totally pushes you and your partner over the edge right now, stop doing it!
Take a break and come back in a month or whenever you two feel like it’s a better time to talk. You’re doing this whole wedding thing because you want to celebrate your relationship. That means how you two feel about your relationship is always more important than some arbitrary checklist.
Still got questions?
Planning a wedding is a very choose-your-own-adventure kind of situation so on the very good chance that I didn’t fully answer your question, consider hiring my wedding planner brain.
If those options don’t make work for you and your partner, totally fair. You can also email me (elisabeth@elisabethkramer.com). I’ll do my best to help.