Weddings may have been postponed or cancelled for the next couple of months, but love hasn’t. I had an enquiry yesterday from a couple that got engaged over the weekend, and it got me thinking, even though we are all sheltered in place right now, life still goes on. People have birthdays, anniversaries and couples are still getting engaged. As soon as I read this new soon-to-be-brides email, I was imagining a super romantic lockdown engagement. Was it a big gesture, or something super low key and sweet – which is more my style. If there was ever a moment to strengthen and fuse your relationship with one another, this is one of those moments. If you can survive lockdown together, you will be able to face life together no problem!
I suspect there will be a lot of engagements that will come out of the lockdown. And with all of these engagements, there will be couples thinking, do we wait to get married? Do we book a venue now? If we do, is our deposit safe? What if we have to move our date? What if we need to cancel? How are weddings going to be different until a vaccine is available? There are so many questions many of you will have now when it comes to making your wedding plans, hopefully I can answer some of these for you.
If you are looking to get married within the next 12-18months, you might have to move that expectation to a longer engagement, or be flexible with your date. With all of the postponements that have happened due to the lockdown, what dates were available over the next 12 months, have been snapped up by those couples who have had to reschedule. Here at De Uijlenes, we do have a small hand-full of weekends available still from November 2020 – May 2021, but it might not be in your perfect month or ideal date that you were thinking of. So, go into picking your wedding date with an open mind.
If you were wanting to get married in the month of March (which is one of our most popular months), you might have to look at a midweek date if there are no weekends available and you are still wanting to enjoy that fabulous weather March has to offer. Luckily, we have a great midweek special, which may make booking a midweek date a little more attractive to you. Check out our specials here.
Maybe you will need to take advantage of some of the great specials venues are offering right now. I am guessing some of you have had to slash your wedding budget due to little to no income over the lockdown period. You might want to look at a winter date, mid-week date or an elopement so you can still have your dream wedding at your dream venue, but it still fits within your budget.
Because we have all had to dip into our savings over the last few weeks to pay our bills and feed ourselves, you also might not have a lump sum sitting there anymore to use as your deposit to secure a date. Here at De Uijlenes, we have set up a payment plan for all of our new clients. Only a 10% deposit is needed to lock in a date and the balance of the venue fee can be paid off over up to 10 months. This is a great option for those of you that need a little breathing room with payments right now.
Booking a venue might seem a little daunting right now, as we are all unsure what will be happening next month, let alone in three or six months in regards to restrictions, social distancing and possibly another lockdown. If the government changes its policies and we all find ourselves in another level of restrictions, then you will have the option to postpone to another available date at no additional costs.
However, when lockdown is lifted and the restrictions are gradually lifted and we can host weddings again in the near future. What will be different about a wedding during the pandemic? Right now, we don’t now exactly when this will happen, but things definitely won’t get back to normal until we all get a vaccine. All of our staff and your other service providers will be wearing masks. You may even have some mask wearing guests in your photos. We will be cleaning and disinfecting constantly during a wedding. Between weddings we will need to spray down the accommodation so it may smell a little clinical in the rooms and communal areas. We need to look at alternative ways of serving the food and drinks to limit the amount of people in one area and hands touching surfaces. We will have to find ways to live stream the ceremony & speeches to friends and family that are unable to make it due to travel restrictions and age or health. We all need to find a new normal when it comes to weddings and learn to live with COVID19.
