HELP! My Wedding Venue has been Destroyed…
First of all, I am SO sorry to hear that you are going through this. Losing a wedding venue to any kind of emergency or disaster while counting down to your big day is a certifiable nightmare. Whether it’s a fire, flood, natural disaster, or other unprecedented situation, it’s nothing short of panic-inducing… So how do I know? Our original wedding venue, Camp Wasewagan, was destroyed by flash flooding and mudslides in Hurricane Hilary… exactly 30 days before our wedding day. Hurricanes aren’t something you think you have to worry about in Southern California, and there we were with a wedding venue that was completely flattened and unsafe to access. The road was washed away, power was completely knocked out, and entire buildings were still missing further down the mountain. When I say that I understand, I truly mean it.
The devastation left behind at Camp Wasewagan from flash flooding.
Here is exactly what I recommend doing if you find yourself without a venue and with the clock ticking:
Put all pause on trying to get a refund from your original venue. You (unfortunately) do not have time to be chasing that right now, quite literally. Wait until you’re on the other side of your wedding day, or if you have some down time once you have a new venue lined up. This step (and this entire process, really) is assuming that you want to avoid cancelling the wedding altogether, and potentially losing deposits already made. Refunds will likely take months to process due to insurance, so I recommend buying yourself that time either through responsible credit card use, gifts from family, or considering an emergency fund withdrawal if you have one. Once refunds are processed, your actual spending should work out to your original budget in the end.
Send out an email cc’ing all of your vendors, and let them know exactly what is happening and that the location of your wedding will be imminently changing. Ask for their recommendations for a new venue - they might have contacts and can pull some of the weight of reaching out to see if they are available. Tell your vendors that you will update them on the location as soon as possible.
Send a mass message to your guests. If you are using a website like The Knot or Zola to collect RSVPs, you can do this through their message guests and custom message features. You can select All Guests or specify only Guests that have RSVPd “Yes”. Tell your guests that your venue had an emergency situation and you will be sending them an updated wedding location as soon as possible. Personally, I requested my guests to withhold any messages of concern or comfort for the moment.
Post in a LOCAL (!!) wedding planning Facebook group that you are having a venue emergency. Include your date, guest count, budget, and anything that was included with the venue, like rentals and catering. This gives any venue representatives that are active in those groups a chance to reach out directly if they know they have the date available and can accommodate you. If you have the means and want to increase your budget to open up a wider range of venue options, now is the time to discuss that with your partner.
Start CALLING venues. Don’t bother with submitting contact forms online at the moment, it takes up too much time waiting to hear back. When you get a representative on the phone, let them know right away that it’s an emergency and what happened with your original venue, and then start going through asking if they are available. If you leave a voicemail message, leave as much information as possible.
Allow yourself to cry and process any disappointment and stress that you are going through. Losing a venue means losing part of your wedding day dreams, even if it does work out perfectly in the end. Here is your permission slip to grieve your original vision.
Now is the time to call on whatever higher power you believe in. Pray, manifest, stay as positive as you can while you buckle up for a busy week ahead because I promise that by next week, you will have progress!
Once you do have your new venue locked in, remember to update your vendors and your guests! Treat yourself to a little extra self-care and an extra deep breath for getting through it.
So what happened with our wedding? After 150 phone calls over 2 days (yes, I counted!) we had a handful of potential leads. Within a week, we had toured a new venue that was a perfect match for us and our vision. Honestly, it was even better than our first venue, but we hadn’t looked at it because our initial guest count was too high and it went under our radar. Our early RSVP date meant we had our final count and we fit within the capacity of this smaller venue. On our original date of 9/30/2024, we held our wedding at YMCA Camp ELK, and it was everything we dreamed of and more.
Please let me know if there is anything we can do to help here at Happily Ever Adventure Co. I’m sending you all the love and luck in the universe.
From one to another, big hugs.