An engaged couple didn’t want a summer wedding. And then along came coronavirus
One of the few demands Katy Clarke said she made when planning her wedding was for no summertime nuptials.
She lives in Texas, Mineral Wells to be exact, so she is well-versed in how high the thermometer can climb in June, July, August and September. So, April 25 it was.
Until it wasn’t.
The coronavirus pandemic has scrambled those plans, and the 27-year-old has rescheduled her ceremony for Aug. 15. It’s going to be hot. But she and fiancee Cole Duvall made the call. If postponing ensured that none of their guests contracted coronavirus, their big day could wait.
“It was Monday. That’s when it was avoid groups of 10 and all these things were coming out,” Clarke said. “We just looked at each other and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ Marriage is supposed to be a lifetime ordeal. If you’re looking at it that way, what is postponing it a couple months just to ensure the safety of everybody?”
That’s essentially the feedback Century Hall and Historic 512 in Fort Worth and Walters Wedding Estates have received from couples whose weddings have been impacted by CDC guidelines and government ordinances.
Prospective brides and grooms aren’t emotional wrecks, in other words. “I can honestly say I haven’t cried once,” Clarke said.
But that doesn’t mean the ordeal has been easy — on the couples or the wedding venues or other vendors. Some couples are simply forgoing their large ceremony and choosing to wed in private at their homes.
Those who have elected to postpone must first find a date with their venue. That hasn’t been as difficult of a process at Century Hall, a relatively new player on the market that opened only 18 months ago.
Dani Edford, director of Century Hall, said every couple that has postponed has rescheduled and no one has canceled. Century Hall has sacked all weddings through May 11 save for one May 2 as the couple decides their next move.
“You can’t reschedule any other vendors until you have a venue,” Edford said.
But rather than Edford calling couples to postpone, they started blowing up her phone. “When everything hit the fan, they came to me,” she said. “Things are coming out every five minutes, so we’re really watching all the stuff that’s coming out. This is not what they signed up for.”
A force majeure policy — or an act-of-God policy — is part of the contract between a couple and Century Hall.
Having just established itself on the market, Century Hall and sister locations in Colleyville and Carrollton, have the room in future weekends and would appear to be not losing any money.
However, the rescheduled weddings are taking potential dates Edford could have sold to other couples down the road. Proceeds from weddings at Historic 512 go to Center for Transforming Lives, a nonprofit organization “dedicated to disrupting the cycle of poverty and homelessness for women and children in Tarrant County. “
“While our events have rescheduled, COVID-19 has affected this source of funding for the organization,” said Nancy Ward, the general manager of Historic 512 and Triumph Catering.
Walters Wedding Estates, which counts Aristide in Mansfield and Hidden Pines Chapel in Hurst among its 16 reception cites in DFW, also is not charging clients for postponements. Their director of marketing, Rachel Johnson, said that as recently as last weekend no weddings were being postponed.
But as the CDC has reduced the size of recommended gatherings and state and local governments are following up, so is Walters Wedding Estates.
Johnson said her company’s average wedding has a guest list of 150 people. “Last weekend alone we had 25 weddings,” she said. “So much has evolved since then. We’re here for the couples. We understand all the stress and impact that this pandemic is creating for them.”
Saturdays aren’t completely dried up in future months, but there aren’t as many as there were two weeks ago. “We’re able to get them in on weekends,” Johnson said. “Every venue is different, but we’re telling them what’s available at their venues to get them moved over. If they had a Saturday, we’re trying to the best of our abilities to get them another Saturday. The same goes for Fridays and Sundays.”
Other vendors are feeling the pain of the postponements. Edford, who also owns the wedding management company Edford Farmhouse, said she has heard from florists, hair and makeup stylists and caterers who have lost a steady source of income.
Edford grimaces each time she looks at social media because so many of her friends in the wedding community are hurting. “Those [people] are struggling to pay bills,” she said. “Facebook is incredibly depressing right now. I see all their posts. It’s heartbreaking story after heartbreaking story. We can’t afford to do refunds, but everything is a case-by-case basis and everyone is hurting.”
In the end, the couples might be having the easiest time wading through the coronavirus shutdown.
“They’re understanding that it’s nobody’s fault, and they’re thankful that we are working with them to find another date for their weddings,” Johnson said. “It may not be their original date, but they’re going to marry their best friend and we’re going to be there to deliver an experience.”
Clarke, who has a guest list of 306 friends and family coming from as far away as New York and Ohio, said the ceremony can wait.
“If you’d told me nine months ago that this would be happening, I probably would have been more of a wreck. But we’re in a pandemic,” she said. “It’s not a question of if you’re going to get married. You’re going to do it.”
This story was originally published March 21, 2020 at 1:51 PM.
