COVID-19 and your wedding invitations

Firstly, if you are reading this, I hope you and your family are safe & well.

It’s safe to say that we are all living an emotional rollercoaster at the moment with the coronavirus (COVID-19) changing the way in how we live, celebrate and entertain ourselves.

As we are all hearing about COVID-19 coronavirus on the news, on social media and amongst family & friends, my heart especially goes out to the couples who are trying to understand how this affects their weddings.

And if you are reading this blog, it’s most probably affecting you, especially if you are considering the reality of cancelling or postponing your wedding after many months, if not more than a year of planning!

What you need to know about wedding invitations and stationery if your wedding is affected by COVID-19.

Whether you still need to book your wedding, are finding yourself needing to postpone your wedding or if you need to change the date of your wedding, please see below some ideas of what you could do.

If you are planning a wedding, make sure you are across the following, especially if you need to postpone.

Get in contact with your venue.
They will take the lead in advising you about their current operations during the times where there are government restrictions or lockdowns. Hopefully there are neither when you are planning your wedding, but still good to have the COVID conversation with them.

Contact your wedding suppliers
Chat with each of your vendors and ask them about their COVID policy or what they would do if restrictions or a lockdown was to affect them on your wedding date? If you have made the decision to postpone your wedding, the next thing you will need to consider is to contact all of your other wedding suppliers to let them know and discuss postponement plans. You will find that your suppliers will work with you to reschedule to a new date if they are available. A lot of suppliers are finding themselves booking out quickly for future dates so possibly a weekday wedding is an option.

Inform your guests
Even if you don’t have a new date to postpone too, send your guests a digital notice, email or text message to let them know that your original wedding date will no longer be going ahead.

I have designed a few different styles of notices here that you are more than welcome to use if you like.

  
If you have a new postponement date, I would suggest sending out ‘Change the Date’ cards if you have already sent your invitations to your guests. Your wedding stationer will be able to help you with these, in fact, if you are a White Cherry Invitations client (current or in the future) you will receive FREE Change the Date cards if your wedding is postponed due to COVID-19.

This card acts like a save the date card but can have the ability to include a little bit more info if your ceremony or reception venues need to change.

When should you send your wedding invitations (if you haven’t already)?

This is a hard one because it all depends on when you are getting married, and no one knows when the government mass gatherings restrictions will lift for the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Traditionally wedding invitations are sent 3 - 4 months before your wedding date; however, with the current uncertainty, I am seeing couples who are getting married in these times currently waiting until they know more.

If you have an order in place with your stationer, have a chat with them to pause on creating your wedding invitations until you have a bit more confidence with what is going on.

However, I know that this means you will now feel like you’re in limbo. Your wedding is still going ahead, but there is an unknown for what the future may bring.

In this instance, what I have noticed is that couples have decided to send out save the date cards instead.

Read more below.

Send out save the date cards!

By sending out save the date cards, you can inform your guests about your upcoming wedding date and not worry about sending out the complete invitation suite while you are still a little unsure about whether your wedding will go ahead or not.

The cost of a save the date card costs far less than a complete wedding invitation suite.

It’s kind of like a happy medium in a situation like this.

Then in the case that your wedding needs to be postponed, you know that your wedding invitations have not gone out to your guests with the incorrect wedding details and you don’t need to worry about sending formal ‘change the date’ cards.

Once your new date is confirmed, the invitation acts as the change the date notice.

View save the date cards here

Are you getting married in the next 12 months?

See below a plan of attack for your wedding that is planned to take place in the next 12 months.

Send out save the date cards
I would send out save the date cards to your guests, especially as all of the postponed weddings that are happening will be rescheduling to future dates, causing a bottleneck of weddings.

For this reason alone, you will want to let your guests know about your wedding before someone else does.

Order a sample wedding invitation
To start the process of confirming your wedding invitation design. By ordering a sample, you are not locking into any contracts or bookings; you are merely getting a start on the process of planning your wedding invitations.

View our samples here
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I hope this helps provide some reassurance & calm with this part of your wedding & as always, please reach out if you have any questions.

Until next time
Bel x

 

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