Wedding Bell Pandemic Blues

The best made plans, sometimes fall through, especially during a pandemic. It’s June, a traditional month for weddings. My step daughter and her fiancée planned to get married this September. They have been planning it since last summer. They had everything set to go, the wedding dress, the DJ, caterers, photographer and the church where they are getting married and the reception across the street. Then on Friday March 13^th, the WHO declared a pandemic. A week later we were all sheltering in place.

You can imagine how upset they both are. Her fiancée comes from a large family, the reception was planned for 400+ guests. With social distancing that would not work. Now that things are somewhat returning to normal there are still compacity restrictions. The majority of the guests are family, so it will be a painful process if they have to trim guests to meet guidelines. Fortunately for them they have not lost any deposits yet, and still not sure how much of the original plans can proceed. But they are keeping a positive attitude and still plan to enjoy their special day no matter what.

In many ways they are lucky, others in the same boat are coming out with sizeable financial losses. There is a couple on the east side of the state that lost thousands of dollars. They planned a beautiful outdoor wedding along the woods and shores of Lake Michigan. But once again the pandemic ended their dream wedding.

The Detroit Free Press reports “The couple still plans to use the same florist and drive to a halfway point the day before the wedding to pick up the flowers. "We figured we can use our deposit and help her out with getting at least a small order instead or no order at all," she said. But other deposits associated with a big destination wedding — including deposits for weekend accommodations — add up. "Between the venue, DJ, photo booth, caterer, Airbnb and my dress we lost $11,014 on the day," she said. They have moved the wedding to their backyard in Plymouth. At least they still get to have their special day.