Update (3/17/20): I wrote this article right when coronavirus broke in my city (Portland, Oregon). Since then, I’ve published another article that’s a collection of every resource I’ve come across that’s specific to running your business as a wedding vendor. That article is here.
I spent yesterday morning pouring over my contract.
Why? Because two days ago, Washington State banned gatherings of 250 or more people in the Seattle area and yesterday, my state, Oregon, did something very similar for the whole state.
My lawyer and I had a 17-message long email thread about what certain clauses mean. Because my lawyer is kind, she answered all of my concerns as I labored over an email to send to my 2020 clients.
This news is scary for everyone. It’s an extra shade of scary if you work in events. I have a lot of friends who are fellow weddings vendors and we’re all stressing the fuck out about our livelihoods right now.
I hope these ideas help.
If you’re a wedding vendor...
Review your contract and then communicate what that contract says to your clients
This feels super vulnerable — “What if they all cancel at once?!” — but people deserve to know their rights.
That goes both ways. By communicating clearly and honestly about what happens if your clients reschedule or cancel their wedding, you get to maintain a positive and helpful relationship with them. You get to do what you set out to do with your business: Support a couple as they celebrate their love, even if that celebration looks a little different than you all imagined it might.
If you’re struggling to find the right words, Meg Hotchkiss of New York-City based planning company LVR Events kindly shared these email templates. They’re a great place to start as you correspond with clients, vendors, and guests.
Note that as of publishing, Meg doesn’t include a template for if your clients want to cancel their wedding so I created one. I also created a template for clients to use for more immediate, less concrete updates for any wedding party members, immediate family members, or guests who need an update more quickly than other guests.
Consider what you’ll do if your clients do reschedule or cancel their wedding
For my business, I went ahead and spelled it out for my clients. This is what they’d owe me if they rescheduled. This is what they would owe me if they canceled.
I did it for them. I also did it for me.
Think about what those what-ifs look like for both you and for your business. You don’t have to make any promises but run the calculations so you know what you’re capable of doing while still, to the best of your abilities, fulfilling all the other responsibilities of being a small-business owner and an adult.
This shit is hard but better to have some idea of what to say than looking at an urgent client email and being like, “Fuck.” Here’s the template of the email I sent my clients.
Consider if you even feel safe going to the wedding
There’s a lot of talk right now among wedding vendors about if it’s even safe to do our jobs. I get this. Deciding whether or not to work a wedding is particularly real if you or someone you love could be more negatively impacted if they got sick.
This choice is between you and your gods. You have to decide what the right decision is for your situation even if it means walking away from money or disappointing a client. I’m in a situation where shit would have to get really, really bad for me to not work a wedding but that’s not true for all vendors.
If things get to a level where I do have to back out of a wedding, I imagine I would hold fast to the Golden Rule: I would treat my clients the way that I would want to be treated. In broad strokes, this means:
being clear about the situation and why I’m making the choice I’m making
being timely and giving as much notice as humanly possible
being kind, both by acknowledging the realities of what I’m doing to them and, to the best of my abilities, offering a solution so I don’t leave the couple in the lurch
Talk to other vendors
It’s tough out here for a small business owner on a good day. Add a pandemic to the mix? It’s very, very easy to start spiraling. (Or maybe that’s just me with the sweaty palms.)
Reach out to your friends who work in the wedding industry. How are they doing? What are they doing? Who needs support? How do you need support? Is there a good way we can help each other, even if it’s just swapping stupid memes to lighten the mood?
If you’re a vendor based in the Pacific Northwest, email me. I’m part of a Slack group of fellow vendors created to support one another. (Update: As of March 17, 2020, I gifted 5 percent of every new booking to a fellow wedding vendor; I called it my “Well, shit wedding vendor relief fund.” I retired this program on October 6, 2020, because I ran out of vendors who said they wanted to be a part of the fund.)
Breathe
This is really a note to myself. My day yesterday did not go the way I expected my day to go. I imagine you’ve had a moment or two like that recently. There are probably more to come.
So please excuse me while I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths here at my keyboard. Feel free to join. It helps.