Postponing Your Wedding: Real Bride, Shilpa Shares her Wedding Postponement Story amid Covid19
Whether you are a newly engaged bride to be or bride struggling to deal with the reality of postponing your wedding, my heart goes out to you. We’re sending you lots of love, strength and prayers for the coming weeks and months ahead.
These are crazy times indeed and understandably, it’s so difficult to plan ahead.
I have heard from many brides over the past few weeks who are facing many challenges due to the Covid19 outbreak. Whilst Australia’s situation isn’t as severe as other parts of the world, I am still advising 2020 brides to postpone until next year.
If your wedding date is set for anytime this year, it’s so important to re-think your options and seriously consider postponing your wedding to a later date. Contact your wedding suppliers as soon as possible. You can read more about postponing your wedding here.
In addition to our regular blog post updates here, I am also providing practical tips and advice over on our Instagram, Facebook and YouTube channels, so be sure to keep up to date as the weeks progress.
Today I have a special article below written by real bride to be and lifestyle blogger, Shilpa Bhim, who in the first week the Coronavirus was announced as a “global pandemic,” postponed her wedding to next year.
Shilpa and I connected toward the end of last year while she was in the throes of planning her April 2020 wedding.
Her and her fiancé, Adam had been looking forward to their Anzac Day weekend wedding in Melbourne for about a year before Covid hit.
Shilpa and I connected not only on a professional level, but soon became good friends too. I was so pleased to hear that her and Adam, were able to postpone their wedding immediately and so thought that it would be great support for you to have a read about her story.
A huge thanks in advance to Shilpa, who despite having to deal with this horrible situation herself, has so graciously offered her practical advice and positive tips for you.
Postponing your wedding, must have been a difficult decision to make. When did you first decide to postpone the wedding festivities?
We decided to postpone around six weeks out from our wedding. Coronavirus just hit Australia and New Zealand (where most of our family and friends live), and we were keeping a close eye on group gathering and travel restrictions being rolled out across the rest of the world. We figured that similar restrictions would be implemented in Australia, and probably fairly close to the time of our wedding. This would in turn mean that our immediate family and close friends wouldn’t be able to attend. We also didn’t want anyone’s health or wellbeing to be put at risk!
Were all your wedding vendors supportive and accommodating?
All of our wedding vendors were incredibly accommodating and supportive, especially when we told them that the majority of our guests would have to travel to Melbourne from New Zealand and elsewhere around Australia and the world.
We worked with our wedding venue, Quat Quatta, first to arrange a new wedding date. The team there were so responsive, friendly and helpful, all whilst dealing with multiple queries and concerns from other couples.
Once we locked in a new date, we were able to work with our other wedding vendors to shift our bookings and deposits. All of our vendors were available on our new wedding date, so that made adjusting dates quite easy.
Every wedding vendor applied our paid deposits to the new wedding date, with the balance due a few weeks or days out from new date.
How about your family and friends?
Our family and friends were so understanding about the postponement. I think everyone was a little disappointed or sad about not being able to celebrate with us. They had really been looking forward to the wedding for a while now, but also appreciated us making the decision and letting them know early.
We were worried about the flow on impact for people who had booked flights and accommodation. However, most airline and accommodation providers were happy to provide refunds or credits.
How did you celebrate your original wedding date?
We got dressed up and sipped on some champagne to celebrate out would-be wedding date of 25 April. It was fun to sit back, relax and celebrate us for a day!
Have you set another wedding date?
Adam and I have postponed our wedding to January next year. Hopefully it will be safe to travel and have group gatherings by then!
For someone who has been through it all already, do you have any advice for other couples going through the same challenges right now?
It’s ok to feel sad, disappointed or even stressed about having to cancel or postpone your wedding. Let yourself go through the range of emotions associated with this challenging time. But also remember to be kind to yourselves and to your vendors and suppliers because they’re doing the best they can in an uncertain environment.
I also think that going through all this will make your wedding day even more special when you are able to celebrate.
Were there any challenges with your outfits – such as manufacturing or production?
No issues for me. I sorted out outfits for myself and my bridal party well ahead of the original wedding date. We were in the final stages of fitting and tailoring when the wedding was postponed.
So, for now, the outfits are safely packed away, with final adjustments to be made toward the end of this year.
How are you keeping yourself busy right now? Are there any more wedding planning details that you need to finalize before the January 2021 wedding date?
In terms wedding planning, I’m not thinking about it at all for now. Once all the bookings were transferred and we had let all our guests know about the postponement and new date, there wasn’t much more for us to do.
Wedding planning will be back on the agenda later this year. We’ll have to send out a new set of invites and finalise our outfits as well as menus and seating plans. Almost everything else was organised and ready to go when we postponed. We will just need to check in with our vendors and suppliers.
For now, I’m keeping busy with work, exercise, self-care and lots of virtual catch ups with friends. It’s also nice to have a bit more down time at home, wedding planning for the past year has kept us pretty busy!
Shilpa is a freelance beauty, health and travel writer from Melbourne, Australia. When she’s not writing, she’s out and about exploring places around Australia and the world. You can keep up with her adventures over at @skb.ontherun and check out her blog here.
Thank you for sharing your experience, Shilpa. If you are a bride or wedding supplier, we’ve created a closed community Facebook group here, which I would like to personally extend an invitation out to you to join, if you haven’t already done so yet. This is a safe space for you to share your thoughts about the current situation. Whether it’s about postponing your wedding or anything else wedding related (no promos or adverts permitted), don’t be afraid to join our community. We love all our brides (and grooms) to be, so this is the absolute best way we can support you.
Also, don’t forget to reach out at any time. Whether it’s via email, info@themaharanidiaries.com or if you simply want to subscribe for regular updates from us. We totally want to help you right now!
Poonam is the founder and director of The Maharani Diaries. She has a passion for South Asian fashion and weddings. Drinking coffee is one of her favourite pastimes and she also enjoys donating her time for charity. You’ll often find her volunteering on the side for various community events.
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