October brides

My bff is getting married in sept and half of her guest list is out of state but she’s got no intention of postponing even though she kind of knows that a lot of people likely won’t come.
Even if they don’t come, would you be ok with that? I think that’s the question you have to ask yourself. My bff decided not to postpone cause she said at the end of the day if the people she wants most can make it then that’s what matters more to her vs a lot of people being able to make it

Hi there! I’m also planning on getting married in October but will most likely postpone or cancel altogether and figure something else out later. Our wedding is going to be in upstate NY but most of our guests will be flying. We don’t want to put guests in the position where they have to feel like they need to choose between their safety and our wedding. I go back and forth though because we don’t know if we will get out deposits back (we’ve made several payments already).

We are planning to get married on October 10. Approximately half our guest list is from out of state. We currently have no intentions to postpone. My train of thought is I would never fault someone for not wanting to travel for our wedding due to the current world circumstances. You would need to be okay with a decent percentage not coming. Also, the majority of our older/high risk family members live in-state, so really it is mostly our younger friends and colleagues that would need to fly. Not sure if that makes a difference. Best of luck in whatever you decide to do!

It depends which is a priority to you... having your wedding this fall, or having everyone (all the out of towners) present. If you do have the wedding, many people will choose not to come since they won’t want to travel. It’s your call if you’re ok with that! Personally I’d be disappointed but I wouldn’t want to delay my marriage so I’d go through with the wedding anyway and leave it up to each guest. However I could definitely see wanting to postpone so more people can make it.



If you do end up hosting the wedding in October, I would make sure you are making it as safe from covid as possible... like spaced-out seating for the ceremony, seating people at the reception at tables just with their household (like restaurant-style tables), mandating—or at least recommending—mask-wearing, etc.

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I feel ya, my family is all in the city up there. It's a tough call! Another kicker is, my venue has a food/beverage fee minumum we have to hit in order to host the wedding there. And if people are fearful of flying, they're not going to adjust to food/beverage minumum fee out of fear, they would only do it if places are shut down then. So even if a bunch of people don't show up, it's not a cheaper catering package.

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Thank you for you input, there are so many factors and everyone's story is so different. Best of luck.

View Quoted Comment We have a food/beverage min too! I’m going to try to talk to the venue to see if they’re willing to decrease it. I don’t know how flexible they’ll be though.

View Quoted Comment Damn! It sucks! I asked our caterer if they would decrease ours and they said no, they adjusted for spring and early summer brides so far. Unless the world shuts down again in Oct, they’re not adjusting

Reach out to some of them at least and see how comfortable they are traveling right now. You’re never going to find that magic date that makes everyone happy, but you can at least be considerate. Luckily I only have a few guests coming that far away.

The virus is here and until there is a vaccine we have to learn to live with it. It is really a hard call because it is going to take a long time for us to not social distance etc. and it is going to affect weddings for a long time. I live in Ohio and we are permitted to have up to 300 guests with social distancing and just found out today we can also have dancing. We are still approx 4.5 months from October. I am okay with cutting the guest list down if need be. I am not really concerned about a second wave in the fall. I feel like if the guests don't feel comfortable then that is okay they do not have to attend.

I do know that Florida is having people from certain parts of the country quarantine for 14 days and they have been checking to make sure that happens. Something to consider depending on where your family is coming from.

Oh man I feel your pain! I’m getting married in Florida and I and most of my guests live up North. I can’t even come down to do my tasting because of the quarantine policy the Governor has right now. We’re about to send out the invites in the next week. Sigh...2020 blows so far.

We’re on 10/10/20 with 65 guests and having a destination wedding at a hotel/casino in Las Vegas. So 100% of our guests have to travel there. 95% live in SoCal with us and can make the 5 hour drive as opposed to the 1 hour flight. But we also have a few guests who have to travel from Texas, Georgia, NY, Maryland and Mississippi.


Up until this weekend, FH and I were completely set on continuing forward unless our venue cancelled. But now with protests in addition to the pandemic, FH and I had conversations about what to do (especially if things start to get worse as restrictions lift). And, of course, Las Vegas is a top U.S. tourist location. So, just as the world is constantly changing right now, our wedding may have to do the same.
As much as we want to move forward with the wedding, we’re also starting to see that it might not be the best idea in our situation for various reasons. Since it’s a destination wedding weekend, we arranged a gathering/activity for guests on Friday evening, then the wedding is on Saturday and a brunch on Sunday. But those three days of activities will probably come with a lot of restrictions... if they can happen at all. We were fine with masks and I had already looked into cute custom wedding masks for guests. But one of the biggest factors is if we can’t dance and mingle at the wedding.
We haven’t officially canceled yet and, thankfully, all of our vendors are holding the date 10/2/21 for us next year. But, we will be making a decision soon. After our discussion, it hit me a little bit because we’ve been engaged for 18 months and were only a few months away. But the next day, after weighing everything out, I became totally fine with postponing and even selected the “change the date” cards that we’ll send to guests. So, I’m almost certain that our 4-month countdown will soon become a 16-month countdown. 🤪😂. But hey.... “Love is (definitely) patient”.

I am in New York and we are now working with our vendors to postpone. We also have a lot of out of town guests, including some who are elderly and some flying in internationally. We've been holding out the last few months to see what happens, and we're now thinking it would be best to postpone. Good Luck and congratulations!

*Also, when I spoke with our DJ, he informed me that he’s been on a number of Zoom meetings that the hotel/casinos hold about their plans. As a result, he totally supported our plan to postpone until next October. Even though I don’t foresee the virus leaving any time soon, I do think that the world will have a better understanding and handle on it by then, as opposed to the short 3 months we’ve through.

Hi Maureen! Our wedding was October 24, 2020, like you we have many guest coming from out of town . Our guest count is between 150-170. And we’re in our mid-50’s so die to that amongst other factors safety of our guest being most prominent we postponed till May 15,2020. Too many uncertainties. We did our date change mid April and I felt so much better. Too much stress and we weren’t comfortable with the phases and the time frame.

View Quoted Comment Same boat. We were having a 3 day event . It was hard to make the call but essential. Good luck 🍀 everyone.

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It's so hard! I want to enjoy being engaged, and I (like many brides) haven't enjoyed it in a very long time, and I feel like I am going to be on pins and needles until October with so much unknown. My fiance and I aren't in a big rush to get married and I could care less about our October date, we'll figure it out, I trust we will make the right decision.

10/17/2020, Nebraska though, I wanted to postpone the reception, but my Mother has informed me that I basically should just put my big girl panties on and deal with the card I've been dealt with. As others have stated until there is a vaccine there really is no way of being able to have a "normal" wedding/reception. But if you postpone, there is a very good chance you won't have a reception at all. Since life happens and other things tend to get in the way (children, etc). So as much as it sucks that I don't get to have the big fun wedding reception with a dance etc, that my siblings were able to have, I should be happy to just have a wedding and spend several thousand to serve my guests supper and drinks. And if I get lucky, and things change before then, I'll still have a DJ (booked to play music during dinner & booked LONG before COVID) so I can maybe have a dance (if restrictions change).

Hi! We were supposed to get married on Halloween of this year but we decided to postpone until October 30th 2021 due to COVID. It was very difficult to make that decision but if you want your dream wedding day with all of your guests and no restrictions I would definitely postpone. It takes a lot of the stress of the unknown away and you can enjoy your engagement a bit longer