coronavirus wedding postponement: what to do about invitations
So here we are. After months of planning, you were nearing the finish line. Your wedding was just a few short months or even weeks away, and then COVID-19 reared its ugly head and hasn’t gone away. Maybe you had to make a quick decision back when your local government shut things down, or maybe you’ve been on pins and needles for months now waiting to decide what to do. Whatever your decision, I feel for you. This is so stressful. It’s heartbreaking. It’s unfathomable, really…
If you’ve made the decision to postpone, you have a few immediate items on your brand new To Do list. One of the most time sensitive of those things is to notify your guests. Awesome. This is just what you need, right? I’ll break down your options, based on each scenario (scroll to find yours):
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Your invites have already been sent
If you’ve already sent your perfectly designed invitations in hopes that your wedding was going to happen, you have some options:
FREE/$: Send an e-card with the Change of Date. Check out Paperless Post for cute designs or talk to a designer if want it to match your printed invitations. Katherine Elizabeth Events offers this service for free for our current clients, and we are offering a custom e-card design for only $20 for new clients). Then you can send a follow-up evite 6 weeks before your new date. You could ask for online RSVPs for your new date, which you can set up through your wedding website, by email or by RSVP response through the evite.
$$: Send an e-card with the change of date (as described in #1 above). Then follow up with a simple printed invitation 6-8 weeks before your new wedding date (with either online RSVP or printed card). You can order from the same place you got your invitations, or hire a designer to create something that coordinates but is not exactly the same.
$$$: Send a printed Change of Date ASAP. You will likely have to move quickly for this option, since you have to factor in production and shipping times. A small business may be a better bet than a “big box” invitation retailer, as they may have more flexibility to move quickly. Then follow up with another printed invitation (as described in #2 above) for your new date when the time comes.
you’ve received invites from the printer but haven’t mailed them
Ugh, this is painful. If you have your invites all ready to mail and THEN you decide it’s not happening, here are some options:
$: Add a change of date insert card into the Invitation Suite. You can design and print from home if you have the capability, order an additional card from your invitation printer, or hire a local designer to get something done quickly for you. Your invitations don’t have to go out more than a month in advance of your original date if you’re choosing this option; you want to give your guests a heads up so they can change travel and hotel plans if they made them, but since the wedding isn’t happening until later, you don’t need to allow for the RSVP returns.
A few notes about RSVPs if you choose this option:
If your wedding is pushed back by only a couple of months, you can add a “change of RSVP date” on the insert card, and use the same RSVPs.
If your wedding is more than 2-3 months delayed (as most are, it seems) you should send another request for RSVP closer to your wedding date. This can be done by mail (a new simple invite and RSVP designed and sent 6 weeks before the new date) or by evite.
It is highly recommended to ask your wedding guests to send their email address and/or phone number with their RSVP, as this will help you compile a list should you need to get in touch quickly with any other changes.
$$: Hold off on sending your invites and instead send an e-card with the Change of Date. Check out Paperless Post for cute designs or talk to a designer if want it to match your printed invitations. Katherine Elizabeth Events offers this service for free for current clients, and we are offering a custom e-card design for only $20 for new clients). Depending on the complexity of your invitations, you may be able to reprint certain parts of the invites with your new date, and spend less than you would to completely re-do the whole thing. 8-10 weeks before your new date you should send your wedding invitations, as you would have with your original date. Try to wait as late as possible to order re-prints; you don’t want to end up in this situation again if, God forbid, you have to make another change.
$$$: Hold off on sending your invites, and send a printed Change of Date ASAP. You will likely have to move quickly for this option, since you have to factor in production and shipping times. A small business may be a better bet than a “big box” invitation retailer, as they may have more flexibility to move quickly. Then follow up with a new printed invitation (as described in #2 above) for your new date when the time comes.
you haven’t ordered invitations yet
First, breathe a sigh of relief. You didn’t waste a big chunk of cash on this piece! Here are a few options for what to do next:
FREE/$: Send an e-card with the Change of Date. Check out Paperless Post for cute designs or talk to a designer if want it to match your future printed invitations. Katherine Elizabeth Events offers this service for free for clients who put down a deposit towards printed invites, or we are offering a custom e-card design for only $20 for new clients. You can send a JPEG or PDF via text or email, or a combination of the two, and quickly get the word out to your guests. Your printed wedding invitations should then be ordered and mailed out with the standard invitation timing, for your new date.
$$: Send a printed Change of Date. You can send this around the same time as you would have sent your invitations for your original date, or as soon as you know your new date. It’s essentially serving the same purpose as a Save the Date; the sooner you send it out, the more likely your guests will get it on their calendar and be able to come. Then proceed with the standard wedding invitation timing for your new date.
If this whole experience (the Year 2020) has taught me anything new about weddings, it is to strongly encourage ALL my clients to have a wedding website. It is the fastest way to inform your guests of ANY changes (COVID-related, or just generally, in future years. As we now know, anything can happen). Most of my clients who have changed the date on their website have said that by the time they sent out an official Change of Date, most of their guests had already seen it on the site.
I hope this has helped ease some of the stress that this chaos has brought to your wedding plans. If you have any questions, post in the comments or shoot me an email. I’d be happy to help! If you’d like to work with me on your invitations or Change the Dates, get in touch and I’ll talk to you soon!
<3 Katie