POSTPONEMENT WORDING
It’s always hard to have to notify guests of cancellations or postponements, so we’ve set a few examples for you that you can copy from exactly in order to make a stressful, painful situation a little easier to manage.
perfect postponement wording for when you have to press the pause button on your wedding plans.
Life sometimes has a habit of derailing the best laid wedding plans, and it's always stressful and heartbreaking when you have to postpone, cancel, or move your wedding date. The pandemic saw a lot of long-set-in-stone wedding dates having to be delayed - and a lot of our couples reached out to us for help and advice in how to make it easy to let guests know that they had to change their date.
Our wedding postponement wording guide covers a range of styles and tones to give you a head start if you need to push that pause button for any reason.
What's the best way to tell wedding guests the wedding is postponed?
'Try and keep it simple' is the best advice we can give you for postponing your wedding. You don't owe anyone an in-depth explanation as to why or how you've had to move, postpone, or cancel your wedding date unless you want to tell them. Here's a few great tips on how to keep it simple and to the point - and you'll find some great postponement wording templates in the PDF.
Keep your postponement wording short and sweet.
You don't have to write paragraphs on the why and how, and we suspect you're probably feeling All The Things and don't have the emotional bandwidth to go into detail anyway as having to move or postpone such an important event can be heartbreaking. So keep it to the basics: for example, instead of "The venue burnt down because faulty wiring from 1923 decided to explode and now we have to wait until it's rebuilt as everywhere else is booked out", you'd just put "due to unforeseen circumstances with our chosen venue".
Acknowledge the disappointment - both yours and your guest's.
It is disappointing for everyone! For you and your love having to wait longer to say I do, and also for your nearest and dearest as they want you to have everything you and your love deserve. A quick line about how you understand the frustration and inconvenience will go a long way, and not only will let guests know that you just get what they're feeling, but has the added bonus of heading off any super nosy questions if you don't want to deal with them; they'll know you're also having a super difficult time and hopefully hold off on badgering you and your love for more details.
Reassure guests that it'll all work out in the end.
No matter if you are postponing your wedding, moving your wedding date, or cancelling your wedding as you need time to regroup and re-plan your big day, a little reassurance is key. This could look like either "we don't have a new date set in stone, but as soon as we do we'll let you know all the details" or "we'll still get married and we'll still want you there to celebrate, so once we know what the plan is we'll be in touch with all the important details". Keep it positive and light-hearted.
Thank guests for their love and support.
Sign off your postponement message with a quick line to thank them for their patience, understanding, and support in this difficult or awkward situation, and that you truly appreciate and cannot wait to celebrate with them.
Triple-check your details and wording!
It never hurts to get a second and third person to check your wording! You get so used to what you've written that your brain automatically scans the first and last letters of each word, so you may skip any tiny typos just because you've been looking at your wording for too long. So get friends or fam to do a check for you just to be safe.
And that's it! Quick, easy, and not as scary as it looks, right? Right! But as always, if you need a bit of a hand or some suggestions for your wedding postponement wording, just get in touch. We love to chat and we're always here to help!
