May 15 was supposed to be their date. Becky Regan and fiancé Jason Techok settled on that date almost a year ago, one of the first steps in planning their wedding.
May 15 is still their date. But their ceremony will be a tiny affair this year, with only their closest family members attending. And the reception will follow a year later, on May 15, 2021, hopefully giving COVID-19 enough of a window to disappear.
Like couples all across the country, Regan, who grew up in Rhode Island and works for Collette Travel Services Inc., and Techok, an engineer, had an abrupt change in plans forced upon them by a pandemic. The couple, who live in Worcester, Mass., made their decision fairly quickly. They moved the wedding reception back by a full year after realizing the ban on large gatherings in Massachusetts was supposed to end a week before their date.
“Who’s to say that it’s not going to get extended?” Regan said.
Of all large events that had to be canceled as crowd sizes were ordered lowered in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, few were more emotionally fraught than weddings. Brides and grooms often take more than a year to plan their big day. So the unexpected arrival of a contagious disease, spread by respiratory symptoms such as coughing and sneezing, quickly put an end to any large event.
‘We’ve had some really difficult conversations. We’ve asked everyone to just be flexible.’
LYNNE OSCARSON, Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick general manager
As of last week, people in Rhode Island were only allowed to gather in groups of five or fewer. In Massachusetts, the number was 10. Such limits put a severe damper on the festive atmosphere of a wedding reception.
The pandemic has also brought a multibillion-dollar industry to a wedding-crashing halt. Businesses from reception venues to photographers, from florists to caterers have been hit.
And there are prospective brides and grooms.
Despite the disappointment, the almost universal pain of the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted most couples to take it in stride.
Tracy Hill, the event and wedding coordinator for Crystal Lake Golf Club in Burrillville, said with the exception of one distraught bride, most couples seemed to understand the need to reschedule events.
Crystal Lake made it halfway through March before the weddings, bridal showers and baby showers came to an abrupt halt. Hill worked to find new dates for all couples getting married in April. And the May and June couples are being asked to select a “Plan B date, just so I could get them in at some point this year,” Hill said.
Some couples have opted to just move the wedding reception back by a full year, to make sure they capture the season they want. Others have asked for late summer or early fall dates.
Hill said she had one sleepless night when it became clear that the venue wouldn’t be allowed to host any of the events this spring.
“I was awake all night, thinking, ‘Oh my God. Where am I going to put people?’ ” she said.
Because the dates have been moved, either to later in 2020, or into 2021, the facility doesn’t lose its deposits. The general rule is that couples put down an initial deposit, and then 50% of the total halfway between the time of the booking and the event date, she said.
“So a lot of my brides have gotten beyond that,” Hill said. For couples that have rescheduled to next year, the costs will remain the same.
Crystal Lake generally hosts about four weddings over a weekend, she said. In many cases, the couples called her to let her know what they wanted.
One bride is a member of the Rhode Island Army National Guard. She was planning a May wedding, but the woman was advised to call it off. “Her commander already told her: It’s not going to happen in May,” Hill said.
That couple postponed the event a year because they really wanted a spring wedding.
At larger venues, such as the Crowne Plaza Providence-Warwick, a similar reshuffling of preferences took place over the past several weeks.
The hotel lost its event business over the course of a few weeks, as meetings were curtailed in size, initially to 200 people, then 50. The hotel remains open, said General Manager Lynne Oscarson, but it has low occupancy as the business travelers and event travelers have largely disappeared.
After the initial confusion of the first weeks of orders to reduce crowd size, Oscarson said she has adopted the strategy of staying two months ahead of Gov. Gina M. Raimondo’s timelines. If the crowd limitations are in effect through April, Oscarson is extending things into mid-June, and having the couples reschedule their events.
“In the beginning, people thought, ‘Well, it would be a couple of weeks,’ ” she said. “Now, we’re staying even two months ahead of the governor. Because that’s what people having weddings need.”
Because many of the weddings involve family members flying into T.F. Green Airport, and all the uncertainty over airline travel, she’s had many couples reschedule their own events. Right now, they all want to keep the event in 2020.
That’s meant some really hard scheduling decisions. Friday night weddings have now been scheduled for Thursday nights. A Saturday event is now on a Sunday.
“We’ve had some really difficult conversations. We’ve asked everyone to just be flexible,” she said.
Regan and Techok, who are planning a reception at Chamberlain Farm & Pavilion in Berkley, Mass., snapped up their May 15, 2021, date as soon as they realized the wedding this year wasn’t going to work.
They still plan to be married next month. They want to start a family, and start their married lives, and not wait another year.
They had already mailed their invitations to the May 15, 2020, event, and they were starting to get the RSVPs. So, they quickly assembled a new design and sent them off.
In an extraordinary time, people have responded in an appropriate way.
“Everyone is feeling sorry for us, and heartbroken,” Regan said.
Mary MacDonald is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Macdonald@PBN.com.
