Can your 2021 Wedding day happen? How likely is it? January 30, 2021 | News

Your 2021 wedding day

Your 2021 wedding day. Despite the early dreams and hopes of toasting goodbye to the sh** show of 2020 on News Year’s Eve. Whilst knocking back alcohol and celebrating the much awaited 2021. The Covid virus found another gear to step up the misery and uncertainty it had already caused during 2020 wedding season.

Especially, as again in we find ourselves in a National lockdown. So what does that mean for this year’s weddings?

Not only did the Pandemic cause chaos and inconvenience for couples who had their wedding planned last year in 2020. With so many couples to be postponing up to 3 times. These couples now find themselves looking down the barrel of gun once again.

The uncertainty of their rearranged date, will it now even happen? It has also thrown in doubt for anyone who have also booked their wedding for early 2021. We are already seeing these couples postpone their wedding dreams to 2022.

So, now add those newly-engaged couples hoping to tie the knot in 2022.

Mirco weddings in 2021

The new wedding day. So, whether you have had to postpone your dream day or whittle down the guest list to 30 and then 15. This seems likely to continue up to June 2021 if not beyond. Once again next year is the hope of so many couples for the dream wedding.

Some couples have already lost huge sums of money they had paid, due to companies going bust or deposits not being refunded to them. So as 2020 was a really tough year, 2021 is slowly heading the same way for every couple planning their nuptials.

But does love clearly win? So far this year, Bridebook.co.uk has reported a 15% YOY increase in engaged couples signing up since Christmas Day, with 400,000 weddings which are expected to take place this year.

In 2020 Simon’s White Wedding Cars provided wedding transport to a lot of micro weddings, (as they have now been labelled). However, in all honesty these weddings were great and very intimide. The couples actually seemed to enjoy these more, allowing much more quality time with family and friends closest to them.

So maybe love does clearly win.

Hope for the future

What is the future of your dream day? The news of a potential vaccine dramatically increases the chances that, towards the summer, weddings may start to look like normal again.

Personally, at present i would think July maybe for normality. But we still have a long way to go, full of uncertainty’s along the journey.

So, of course it’s not all doom, hopefully micro weddings may start again in April. Can you make a micro wedding special? Yes, it’s already special in the fact you are getting married. However we did see more couples adding our luxury champagne and 3 car hire package to give it a wow factor.

So what does it all mean for you and your 2021 wedding?

2020 was set to be the biggest year for couples to be wed. Alas, covid came along and ruined the plans of many. Thus causing mass cancellation and postponement, but also uncertainly.

Postponement. So, with many couples changing their date to 2021 from 2020. Also as we write some have already now postponed again to 2022 or late 2021.

Uncertainly. In 2020, bookings almost stopped overnight for weddings later on in the that year. However the other main affect was additionally that the bookings for 2021 weddings also stopped. So. for example, we took more bookings Jan-Mar. Than what we did the rest of the year.

Maybe the fear of couples losing deposits and companies going bust, with the added uncertainty of not being able to have the wedding couples had planned or dreamt of, had finally played a massive role on the planning.

Planning ahead weddings in 2022

So, as the first month of 2021 comes to an end and lockdown is already set to stay in place until early March, what does this mean for couples?

As above, we hope early June maybe, but it this point thats half of 2021 already wrote off.

It is generally known that fewer couples get married in the months of January, February or March. Mainly because of the British weather and plan for a date in the Spring and Summer months. when we have better weather. However this changed in 2021, with couples postponing from 2020.

Once again these couples have had to rearrange their wedding day, with many just putting it back another year into 2022.

The big problem ahead

Looking ahead, 2021 already has a lot of planned weddings, however maybe 40% will postpone to 2022. Newly engaged couples are already booking their 2022 weddings, full of confidence that normality would have returned.

So, it’s suddenly apparent that the last 2 years, it’s been like searching for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 2020 promised that pot, then 2021 looked to definately to deliver it and some, unfortunately it only rained.

However 2022 is now set to be the biggest year ever, for weddings, but by default of the circumstances in the previous 2 years.

The big problem, suppliers will be in demand already by default of postponements. So, add the confidence of the newly engaged booking their services already for 2022. You risk by being too cautious with not booking suppliers, caused by last year, losing out on your preferred and reputable choice.

The bad news?

Consequently, if you’re tying the knot in 2021 or 2022, it may be more expensive to book services. Some suppliers may try to claw back the income they lost during the pandemic.

Plus, with more weddings than ever taking place in 2021 & 2022, suppliers have even more of a reason to price their services due to high demand.

Sadly, it will be the couples who through the uncertainty, that have not secured their dates that will may the price.

Although, thankfully the government has helped with loans during the pandemic. Essentially these loans need to be paid back, so expenses and running costs have increased, which in turn means companies need to increase their fees in order to run a sustainable business.

Given that the 2021 and 2022 wedding seasons will be busier for most wedding professionals, it’s likely that they will raise prices to not only manage their calendars more efficiently but also ensure that they can continue to provide that exceptional experience for all couples.

Expenses aside, how likely is your wedding to go ahead this year?

January – March 2021
As we are now in a national lockdown, weddings can only go ahead under ‘exceptional circumstances’ – that’s if someone getting married is seriously ill or is about to undergo life-changing surgery. The lockdown looks set to be in place until at least the first week of March so if you have a wedding in this period, it’s advisable to postpone.

April – June 2021

So, at this stage, we can only live in hope, that micro weddings may be allowed and the numbers slowly increased. A lot of the bookings are from 2020 and have planned a normal wedding, with no restrictions. Therefore we would expect most of these to postpone again.

Of course, we still await the effect of the vaccines and lockdown. We hope each month in this period would get better. E.g. June is better than May, May is better than April.

July 2021 onwards
By July, we hope to be well on the way to a full return to normality; Hopefully by then, advances in rapid testing or vaccination should allow us to have full scale weddings. This is by no way a guarantee, we hope by the end of April, everybody planning to get married will have a clearer picture and hope for the perfect wedding.

Wedding Cancellations

If you’re wondering or stuck in a predicament whether to cancel entirely or postpone your wedding. You should heed the advice from the CMA on cancellations and postponements.

The Competition and Markets’ Authority (CMA) have released their latest guidance. It shows that couples who choose to cancel their weddings, even during a lockdown, would expect to incur cancellations costs of up to 37.2% of the cost of their total venue fee.

Also, this continues to be debated, but we reaffirm that if your wedding is in the next few months and you do not want it to take place, it is vastly better for all parties to postpone than cancel. In the majority of cases you will then incur no cancellation costs.

Best advice

Best advise, would be to book your required services, sooner rather than later. Most reputable companies will honour your booking and price, even if you have to postpone it.

If you dream for a large wedding? Look at least 6 months ahead at present, don’t stress it will happen. So remember love is love and hopefully as Beyonce said, you have already put a ring on it.