Whether you recently postponed your wedding due to COVID-19, or your wedding is several months away, social distancing orders shouldn’t derail your to-do-list. While we’re at home without the daily interruptions of commuting, shopping, or hanging out with family and friends, we have plenty of found time to get our to-do list done! Today, we’ll discuss some creative ways to complete those normally in-person tasks and some benefits to doing them now.
Video Conference Calls: Any in-person meetings you had scheduled with your venue, wedding planner, or other vendors can be changed to video conference calls. This will allow you to continue with the meeting as scheduled, discuss time-sensitive items, and not worry about social distancing orders. Your venue can do a virtual walkthrough of the site, your florist can show you flower options and bouquets, your baker can show you mock-up cake designs. You name it, and it can be achieved through video.
E-sign Contracts: You may have not signed a contract yet, or your wedding professionals may be sending you amended contracts with date changes due to your COVID-19 wedding postponement. Either way, to get those contracts confirmed ASAP, request that your vendor email you the contract. You can either print, sign, and scan to email it back to them, or you can e-sign by pasting in your digital signature and then email it back to them. Likewise, your vendor can do the same and then send you back the final countersigned contract. Presto, you’re confirmed! It’ll take five minutes from your day and one big item will be checked off of your to-do list.
Credit Card Payments: Often, vendors prefer if you can pay for services in cash or check. However, you would probably have to be in-person to pay with these methods, or you would have to mail it to them, which may require a trip to the post office. In order to stay socially distant, ask if you can pay by credit card. Vendors may like this option, because they could receive payment faster. Note that your vendor may have you pay a minimal credit card transaction fee. If paying by credit card, ensure your card has a points system so you can benefit from every transaction. For example, we paid for most of our wedding on our credit card that gave us points to spend on travel. We charged every high-ticket item (venue, DJ, photographer, etc.), and with three points per dollar on hotels, the points added up fast! We ended up using those points towards our incredible six-week honeymoon to five countries around the world (my Amarvelous Honeymoon blog posts can be found here). Pro tip: I highly suggest you pay off your card each month so you never pay interest rates. If you are paying interest, then you aren’t traveling for free.
Plan your Bachelorette and Bachelor Parties: With travel bans still in place, the travel industry is hurting. Hotels, airlines, and cruises are all offering incentives to purchase travel for future dates. If you were originally planning a local hometown day/weekend bachelor celebration, then this is an affordable time to switch things up and book a travel weekend instead. If you were always planning a travel bach-bash, then lucky you, because your rates may now be cheaper! Companies are offering additional incentives upon purchase. For example, some cruise lines will offer free drink packages with your booking, or if you book a group rate with enough people, they may give you a big discount off the top of everyone’s fees, or the bride (or groom) can cruise for free. Side benefit, literally nothing makes me happier than planning vacations. If you are in a slump with these stay-at-home orders, could you think of anything happier than planning a vacation with all your favorite people?
Plan your Honeymoon: Similar to the ideas above with accruing credit card points and leveraging discounted travel rates, this is a fantastic time to begin the honeymoon planning. You may get more bang for your buck booking during COVID-19 if your one-week vacation could potentially be stretched to two weeks for the same price. Take advantage of this. For those who postponed their wedding, already had their honeymoon booked, and now it’s cancelled, you should be reaching out to all hotels, airlines, cruise companies, and excursion companies requesting either a date change, credit, or refund. If you already booked, and the trip is not affected by COVID-19 cancellations, then you can just honeymoon before the wedding! Hubby and I actually had a trip planned for early May that was cancelled. Our airline provided us a full refund, and our cruise line provided us a credit towards a future cruise. Tours and excursions that we booked are also issuing refunds. We are already dreaming of our next vacation. And like I said above, that brings us joy. Don’t let a cancelled honeymoon bum you out—plan the next one bigger and better (or the same but cheaper)!
Online Shopping: Sitting at home, socially distancing, is the perfect time to get in some online shopping! The fantastic news is that since stores don’t have anyone shopping in person, they are offering amazing online deals. You may still need items for your bridal party gifts, parent gifts, fiancé gift, décor, honeymoon… the list could go on forever. If you postponed your wedding, you have the luxury of time. Don’t jump online and purchase everything full-price. Spend some time, peruse the offerings of several stores, and save your money by buying it when it’s on sale. Hubby and I had a long engagement, so when planning my own wedding I was able to use this discount purchasing method. We found incredible discounts on bridal party day-of gifts, hotel welcome bags full of goodies, and all the items for our candy buffet. Without the discounts, we definitely wouldn’t have been able to do these extra items. Finding the sales not only allowed us to do them, but to do them all-out.
Online Shop Bridesmaid Outfits: Many dress companies offer online shopping for bridesmaid dresses. Kleinfeld Bridal Party is a favorite of mine, because the brand is trusted and the quality is hands-down the highest. They offer bridesmaid dresses in solids and prints. They also have mother-of-the-bride/groom and flower-girl dresses. Most of their dresses are under $200, plus if you use my discount code: TBSAME you’ll receive 10% off plus free shipping!! For a small fee, they also offer try-on-at-home options. I don’t think you can beat that during COVID-19 social distancing. The video below will explain how to measure at home so you purchase the best sizing needing the fewest alterations.
Online Shop Groom and Groomsmen Outfits: The online shopping doesn’t end with the ladies. For the men, we have Generation Tux as an excellent option for online shopping. I’ve actually written a full blog post on why Generation Tux is so great, which you can find here. For $139, you can have a handsome suit rental that fits like a glove. Plus, if you use my discount code: BSAMARVELOUS you’ll receive free color swatches, 25% off rentals, and free delivery 14 days prior to the event. As an added bonus, if the party has five or more renting, then the groom qualifies for a free rental! At-home-try-ons are also available, and the groom’s is always free.
At-Home Cake Tasting: The first time I saw a COVID-19 pick-up and DIY box was from a pizzeria. Each box contained a ball of dough and containers of sauce, cheese, and pepperoni. Everything is perfectly portioned and allows the buyer to make a single pizza at home. It was such a creative way for the pizzeria to make business, and it becomes a fun cooking project for adults and children. After that, I saw some bakeries join in and create DIY cupcake and donut decorating boxes. Using the same idea, bakeries include plain cupcakes or donuts, and containers of different frostings and sprinkles. If you have an upcoming cake tasting that is now cancelled due to COVID-19 social distance orders, ask your baker if they would do a similar concept with a pick-up cake tasting box. They would include a slice of each flavor cake, then a small container of each filling and frosting flavor option. Be sure to ask them to label each one so you aren’t guessing what the flavors are. Now that’s a tasty date night in!
Decide the Seating Chart: The seating chart can be one of the most challenging tasks. There may be a family grudge that prevents you from sitting some folks together, or you could not want to alienate a friend on a table of people they don’t know. Whatever the case may be, this is not an easy job. Your venue will tell you how many people fit on each table (usually around 10), and then it’s your job to split up the party into those groups. Once all RSVPs come in, I highly recommend you begin this daunting task. Table shape and size will dictate how many people can sit comfortably around the table, and the shape and size will be needed to decide on the floor plan. You can’t wait until the last second to do seating arrangements, otherwise your whole floor plan will be decided last minute as well.
DJ Song Selections: Something most couples don’t realize is that there is more to do once you have selected your DJ, and your pre-wedding decisions aren’t done once the contract is signed. Your DJ will need a list of music selections. I am not referring to the six-hour playlist for the reception. I am referring to all the sound clips that will play throughout the day. For example, walking down the aisle for parents, bridal party and bride, cocktail hour music, walking into the reception for parents, bridal party, and couple, first dance, parent dance, cutting cake, speeches, final song of the night, etc. There are a bunch of songs you need to hand-select. Create a date night at home with your fiancé where you jam out to your favorite tunes and decide these final music details.
Photographer Picture Selections: Similar to a DJ, your job continues once you sign that photographer contract. You will need to supply your photographer a list of all mandatory photos you want captured throughout the day. Your photographer will use it as a checklist to ensure they are taking all of the photos you envisioned. They still have creative freedom to take the rest of the photos as they want, but ensuring the couple gets their expected photos makes for a happy couple! Don’t just think about getting ready photos with the bridal parties, immediate family portraits, full family portraits, full reception party photo to end the night, etc. Those are important to note, but it’s also important to get super detailed and request photos like “all girls sitting on the bed in hair and makeup prior to getting dressed”, “bride putting on lipstick”, “lay flat detail photos of flowers, invite, and jewelry”, “men showing off their matching socks and cufflinks”, etc. These are the kinds of special detail photos often forgotten about. In order to decide your top list of photos, I suggest perusing Pinterest. There is a lot of wedding photography inspiration to be found on this platform.
Break In Your Wedding Shoes: This is a simple one, but if you plan to dance at your wedding and not take off your shoes halfway through the night, then don’t forget to break in your shoes first. Only you and your spouse will know you were walking around your house rocking PJs and gorgeous bedazzled shoes, and your feet will thank you for it!
Finish Up All DIY Projects: It’s important to finish DIY projects early. The weeks leading into the wedding are so stressful. A million little things pop up. The last thing you need on your plate is random DIY projects that you left to the last minute. Often these projects will get dropped because you simply ran out of time, or other things that popped up took priority. If it’s a DIY you really want, complete it early.
As you can see, there are many ways you can keep your to-do-list going during COVID-19 social distance and stay-at-home orders. I hope this has inspired you to get to work and continue planning! Just because your wedding was put on hold, doesn’t mean the planning has to be delayed.
DISCLAIMER: Amarvelous Event is a member of the Kleinfeld Bridal Party Representative Program and Generation Tux Partner Program. By clicking on affiliate links above or utilizing our discount codes, Amarvelous Event may receive compensation at no additional cost to you.