To ask what the hell I'm supposed to do about my wedding?

[Covidwedding]

20 months ago my partner and I booked a destination Caribbean wedding. I know the general MN opinion on destination weddings, so please hold back from telling me I've been selfish as it really is too late and all families were consulted before booking.

Obviously we didn't predict a pandemic. It's been a shit storm of a year, my hours and wages have reduced dramatically, we nearly cancelled the wedding as we were worried we couldn't afford it but it meant all our family and friends that had booked would lose their money, and no way could we afford to reimburse. A loan was agreed with my parents to avoid this.

We had a few older family members drop out a few months ago, due to health concerns with covid which we fully understood. Arranged a zoom for the ceremony and apologised for the sheer shittiness of it all.

Full balances are due in six weeks for those have been paying in instalments, and we've had a few people come forward and say they don't have it, their financial situations have changed and it's impossible. The issue is these are important people, siblings, wedding party etc. It's a complete mess. We are still in the same situation where if we cancel all money is lost, and although we've lost about 12 guests who know they'll lose money, they've chosen to not attend and are ok with the implications. There are still 30 who are still in and paid up.

My partner and I are on very different pages with how to handle it, though one of us has lost more guests from their family than the other so we may be seeing things through biased eyes.

One of us wants have a legal registry office ceremony here first with all the family who can't attend, but to keep the destination wedding as a 'blessing' despite knowing it won't be the wedding we had in mind but also knowing that we have no means to reimburse the 30 remaining guests and don't want to cause family rifts by pulling the plug.

The other feels too many important people have pulled out and it's not right to go ahead, they'll never get over getting married without these people there and that the other guests can decide whether to lose the money or to transfer the balance to another holiday of their choosing. They also aren't happy with a registry office do for those who can't come as feels it's a 'fake' wedding and the 'real' wedding will always be the destination one.

Please can I have opinions, not abuse, I'm so torn over it all. With hindsight we wouldn't of booked this wedding, but it's far too late for that.

Can you not have a registry wedding here for those that can’t attend the wedding in the Caribbean and then the beach wedding for those who can attend the holiday?

The argument is they can look into transferring the balance to another holiday (for an admin fee). It's just not that simple as we made all their bookings in our name so they'd all need to make the holidays through us, I don't mind doing the admin for them but I can't bring myself to say "hey, weddings off, you can pay even more money to change your holiday to somewhere else, even though holidays are stupidly expensive right now, there's no certainty on travel restrictions and you need to go through me to do anything about it"

I think you should poll or chat to the remaining guests. You may find that others are hoping to be offered a refund later so have kept quiet so far. Speak to them and ask them for their views. At least then you'll know their thoughts.
But as others have said a wedding is just one day so the idea that you'll never recover from some people not attending is a bit OTT!
Caribbean flights - especially places like St Lucia - have been flying right up until lockdown 2 so you can't assume it will be cancelled by the holiday company unfortunately.

Are you liable for the outstanding balance of those who have now pulled out?

Honestly

Book the register office for between Chriitmas and new year and have a simple beautiful wedding with a few family and friends that are allowed and fish and chip supper afterwards

Then next delay the carabian wedding until 2022

I would cancel it and get married in a registry office/church here when it's possible. What is more important, the wedding or the marriage?

When you rearrange it get wedding insurance if you can.

Oh no! This is really hard. There must be a way to sort it. You cant be waiting around to start married life either.

I would consider a massive email to all concerned explaining your worries and see what people think?

How much would it cost if you paid the admin fees? I assume that's a lesser cost than the deposits of you were to cancel?

It would be really shitty to cancel on the basis that some people can’t make it. I think you have to go ahead with it and see what happens. It might be that Covid cancels it anyway, in which case have a wedding here instead.

@ASchuylerSister

Are you liable for the outstanding balance of those who have now pulled out?

At the moment it's just loss of deposit. If anyone pulls out in the 3 months beforehand then yes we'd be liable for the full balance but I believe everyone should of paid in full by then.

I just wanted to say I have personal preferences for type of wedding - but can't believe you fear getting abuse for booking this at a time when no one knew this would happen!

I can't imagine how you decide, you sound like you care very much about the other people's money.

I guess if it was me I would try to keep the option of it being cancelled and getting a refund.

You can have a registry office event at short notice any time if needed.

Maybe tell your guests you don't know and you can't control so you support them with whatever they try to do, you are going to go in April if you can or accept a cancellation, not reschedule again? Then review in March.

So the options are:

• cancel now and lose deposits (£20k)
• cancel later and lose all the costs (?)
• wait to see if covid cancels it when you get full refunds
• rearrange again

Have I understood?

@Covidwedding

The argument is they can look into transferring the balance to another holiday (for an admin fee). It's just not that simple as we made all their bookings in our name so they'd all need to make the holidays through us, I don't mind doing the admin for them but I can't bring myself to say "hey, weddings off, you can pay even more money to change your holiday to somewhere else, even though holidays are stupidly expensive right now, there's no certainty on travel restrictions and you need to go through me to do anything about it"

I think the problem is also you don't even know if your own wedding will go ahead because of the pandemic, so even doing this could be unnecessary mess. It might also invalidate any travel insurance anyone has in case they did agree to change and pay a fee. You have almost 2 different problems: 1) you've arranged an expensive overseas wedding and some important guests have now dropped out 2) the wedding is in a global pandemic. I think 2 will trump 1 at this point, any solution you come up with now is massively subject to change as much as your original wedding. So I think you either need to postpone for 2022 or just carry on and accept it might be cancelled anyway (in which case that solves a number of issues albeit you miss out on your dream wedding) and if it's not cancelled due to the pandemic you could still decide to cancel later yourselves and then the guests still have the same option of switching to a different holiday. What % is the final payment they are all due to make? This deadline is accelerating your decision but it doesn't have to.

I’d go ahead. Your 30 guests are still going. Have the wedding as planned.

Then here in UK you have a blessing, but not incurring expense of a wedding

This is if people can still travel come April 2021.

You’ve planned this, it’s paid for (mostly) 30 of your guests have paid for this and determined that they’re still going to support you

You need to ask the remaining guests. They may be relieved at not having to pay more in a few months, or prefer not to travel but not want to say anything to upset you. More People than you think probably don't want to travel now.

PS I think the important guests aren’t a factor btw. I know you said one party thinks they are.

But I think the main issue is recovering as much of the cost as you can.

@nicelyneurotic

You should go ahead as planned for the people who have paid for the holiday, and have a blessing at home afterwards for those who had to drop out.

This is what I would do. I'd feel ripped off if I'd shelled put thousands to go to a wedding which turns out to not be a wedding at all. Complete waste of time. Too bad for the people who pulled out but their choice.

Asking the remaining guests what to do only works if you get a unanimous answer.
Chances are you'll get multiple answers and you'll then end up pissing off the people who advised something different. That will lead to even more guilt and mess than you already feel.
I really think you & your fiancé need to decide for yourselves, it's your wedding.

I agree that you need to talk to the guests. It's not going to be easy, but better now than later. Some may say "don't worry about it, we'll still go for the holiday, we could do with the excuse to do something exotic if this is all over"; some may say "actually it would be a relief; we'd rather cut our losses now". They might also have views on deferring - for instance you might not be the only ones thinking of having a baby - although of course people may not want to say if that's the case.

So if I've understood this right, because some people have pulled out you are now contemplating either cancelling or deferring so that those people can attend? But that would result in either a loss or extra costs for the other guests?

I'd be pissed off at the people who have pulled out TBH, I understand that circumstances change but at the end of the day that was their choice to pull out. No way on this earth would I contemplate doing anything that would be to the detriment of the other guests just to accommodate other people who have pulled out.

My wedding would be going ahead as planned (Covid restrictions permitting).

Could you consider postponing the wedding until 2022 and trying for a baby sooner? Means you'd have a small baby at your wedding but that's not so bad if you have lots of family there to help.

I think you need to ask the guests. Destination weddings are the destination you chose, not somewhere they may necessarily want to go. You wanted them to be there so you either go ahead with it or defer and offer to pay the admin costs. I am sorry but it is shit for the guests who would lose a deposit because a few have cancelled

I'd go ahead and have a big party when covid is over for everyone, a vows renewal. Fingers crossed it gets cancelled!

If you can defer without losing all the money then I think that is the only option.