SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC NEWS) — Planning a wedding is stressful enough, but for couples this year, a wedding now may be up in the air. As restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 continue to stretch into late April, couples who scheduled their weddings are now looking for other options.
Enter wedding planner Kate Brown who, with her husband Ty, runs LoveWell Weddings, a planning and photography service for couples who are looking to tie the knot. Kate said while her normal day to day life as a planner is stressful, this stress is much “stranger.”
Brown is currently working with seven clients for this particular season. She has been trying to keep a level head throughout it all, and be a strong support for couples who are struggling.
“It is a really tender time in a couple’s life,” she said, “They are trying to figure out how to navigate this wedding world which is spinning at a different pace and speaking a different language than they ever have spoken before.”
Brown has been able to employ strategies to alleviate her clients’ stress, including sending invitations with a backup date, and securing the same venue for those dates. She also looked into clients’ ability to have a smaller ceremony, but found an interesting detail about marriage licenses in Onondaga County.
“There is no actual paper being pushed through the County Clerk right now,” she said, “you can do it digitally, but in looking at what you can do digitally it is all in emergency code, and marriage licenses are not among the list of emergency services or documents that can be approved right now.”
Brown also glanced ahead into the future of weddings, as the economic toll from the virus continues to plummet the stock market. “I started my business just on the other side of the Great Recession of 2008,” she said, “and it was a ‘do it yourself era’ for weddings. I helped guide a ton of craft projects for couples to make their wedding day unique…I think we are going to feel a similar thing.”
While Brown has found some success with her clients, it hasn’t been the same for couples elsewhere. Veronica Zoeckler, a 26 year old woman from Colorado, had to postpone her destination Jamaica wedding due to the outbreak.
“I am sad because I was really looking forward to having our wedding happen in June,” she said, “We hav received many encouraging and supportive messages from our guests though, which is wonderful.”
Zoeckler’s fiancé, Peter-John Rowe, is a native of Jamaica, and all of his family live on the island. When asked about doing a smaller ceremony Zoeckler pointed to the relationships she has made with her vendors.
“We built relationships with our wedding planner, the church, and the vendors in Jamaica,” she said, “We didn’t want to lose all we invested in our destination wedding by cancelling — not just money but time, effort, and relationships.”
She and many other couples this wedding season hope that though delayed, they can still enjoy the wedding days they imagined.
For more information on Kate and Ty Brown, click here to visit their website.
For couples looking for advice, click here to go to a Facebook group Kate started for couples to ask questions.
And for more information on COVID-19’s symptoms, how to stop the spread, and protect others, click here
