from Jennifer
When the National Weather Service forecast two feet of snow for central and northern Virginia last weekend, the first thing I thought was, “Oh no, what about anyone who’s having a wedding this weekend?”
While it’s possible to reschedule most events, a wedding is, of course, a huge production with a lot of moving parts. Frequently, guests come into town from places afar. Venues have highly scheduled availability. And if you’ve been waiting for months and months to officially tie the knot and, at zero hour, there’s the chance of postponement—the anxiety has to be awful.
As it happened, we did not have a wedding scheduled for the weekend (although we did have a special event that organizers rescheduled). But I thought of some of the places, particularly a little farther north, who did.
So what do you do?
The obvious option is to reschedule if venue and vendors and officiate are able—and I heard of many people who did.
I also heard of weddings on Friday afternoon and evening that got moved up a few hours to Friday morning to beat the storm.
And I heard of others who went on as planned, understanding that many of their out-of-town guests couldn’t make it in. With local roads also snowbound, even local guests had a tough time making it. Some even brought along portable generators to ensure they’d have power if the lights went out.
It’s not an easy situation, no matter how you cut it, and there’s no ideal solution. It’s important to make sure that any vendor’s contract spells out contingency plans for “acts of God.” It’s also a good idea to look into wedding insurance. Travelers offers a great plan.