Yahoo Finance Aussie couple has $20k in limbo after postponing wedding four times
The worst part about postponing your wedding due to COVID-19 isn’t the frustration, or even the uncertainty.
It’s the fact that you lose all excitement about it.
It’s hard to feel good about what’s meant to be one of the best days of your life when you don’t think it’ll even happen, Lisa Bremner told Yahoo Finance.
She and her partner have postponed their wedding four times and now have $20,000 tied up with vendors in New Zealand, Perth, Wollongong and Thredbo.
She is just about ready to give up.
“It’s horrible. Anytime you go to plan a new wedding, you’re planning to cancel. We might get there but we probably won’t,” she said.
“We’re trying to take it in our stride, but it’s so emotionally and mentally draining.”
She knows that plenty of people have it worse, and doesn’t hold any frustration towards the vendors, who she knows are also struggling.
But that doesn’t change the fact that for Bremner, in a period in her life that should be joyful, it's the opposite.
And she’s not alone.
Nearly 90 per cent of recently married couples in Australia feel the pandemic affected their big day, the Choosi Cost of Love 2021 report recently found.
Many (27 per cent) plan to have a smaller wedding due to the restrictions, while 68 per cent now feel that big weddings aren’t so important.
“With less guests comes some financial relief, and couples are looking at investing this money in other major life moments,” Choosi head or research and content Therese Waters said.
But while many are spending less on weddings, the stress of planning has increased, with brides- and grooms-to-be concerned over who to invite and how restrictions will affect the festivities.
“A striking element of the research is that at least half of all respondents said that their mental health had been impacted due to the stress of planning their wedding during COVID-19,” relationship expert and psychologist David Fox said.
“I would venture to say that the impact of a wedding on mental health may remain the same regardless of a pandemic or not. There is so much societal pressure and expectations of a wedding and whilst it can be an incredibly enjoyable and memorable experience for many, there certainly is a mental, emotional, and financial cost.”
Bremner agrees that the pandemic will make weddings smaller. She said had always planned to elope and is glad she hadn’t gone down the path of planning a bigger, extravagant wedding.
However, she did engage the services of a wedding coordinator - something she’s also glad she did.
While her family and friends have been supportive, the wedding coordinator, vendors and her photographer have all been able to empathise with her frustration in a real way. They’re experiencing it, just on the other side.
“That’s the part that I hate about this - people who are entitled and don’t understand [that vendors are also struggling],” she said, noting that her photographer had been subjected to aggressive behaviour from clients.
“The best bit has been working with our vendors. Just be kind, because everyone is going through it.”
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