Canceling a Wedding: Answers to the Most Important Questions

Life is an unpre­dictable thing, and some­times even impor­tant deci­sions have to be can­celed. Can­cel­ing a wed­ding can be a painful top­ic, because the dif­fi­cul­ty of the deci­sion for the cou­ple is com­pound­ed by the dif­fi­cul­ties with the envi­ron­ment: how to con­vey this infor­ma­tion to the guests, what to tell the con­trac­tors and where, in the end, to hang the wed­ding dress? What­ev­er the rea­son for can­cel­ing the wed­ding, Chan­fash­ion this arti­cle will tell you how to deal with the con­se­quences.

How to inform the guests about the cancellation of the wedding?

If plans have been can­celed before you’ve sent out for­mal invi­ta­tions, guests can be noti­fied via instant mes­sag­ing or email. A rather dry mes­sage like “Dear Mykhai­lo and Katery­na, we inform you that the wed­ding of Ivan and Mary­na on Octo­ber 23 will not take place. We will inform about the rea­sons lat­er. Thank you for under­stand­ing”.

If the invi­ta­tions have already been hand­ed out to the guests, it is bet­ter to noti­fy them by phone to be sure that the infor­ma­tion has reached every­one in time. One hun­dred per­cent after such a mes­sage, the guests will be sur­prised and will ask about the rea­sons for the can­cel­la­tion. Because of this, it is bet­ter to entrust this task to the par­ents, sib­lings or girl­friends on each side of the ex-fiancées. So you will not suf­fer, answer­ing painful ques­tions in cir­cles.

Do you need to explain the reasons for canceling the wedding?

Short and sim­ple — no. To begin with, a mes­sage that the wed­ding has been can­celed is enough. Lat­er, when you solve all orga­ni­za­tion­al issues and get a lit­tle back to nor­mal, you can reveal the rea­sons for such a deci­sion in more detail.

Per­haps it will be eas­i­er for you to ask a close friend to take over the fur­ther com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the invi­tees, so that you do not have to return to this top­ic and painful ques­tions dozens of times.

It is bet­ter not to spread infor­ma­tion on social net­works (even if, on emo­tions, you want to angri­ly throw this fact in the face of the whole world). Oth­er­wise, you will receive a lot of mes­sages, often tact­less, from dis­tant rel­a­tives or acquain­tances, which will def­i­nite­ly not improve your morale. In addi­tion, it can pro­voke a lot of gos­sip and con­jec­ture, which will con­tin­ue to inform you for some time and remind you of the inci­dent.

What to do with the wedding ring?

This is a very indi­vid­ual ques­tion. Here are some rules you can fol­low:

• If the engage­ment ring is a fam­i­ly heir­loom and was not pur­chased before the pro­pos­al, then it must return to the fam­i­ly it pre­vi­ous­ly belonged to. Regard­less of who ini­ti­at­ed the annul­ment of the mar­riage.
• If the woman decid­ed to refuse the pro­pos­al, it would be bet­ter for her to return the ring to her ex-fiancé.
• If the hus­band with­draws the pro­pos­al, it is bet­ter for the bride to dis­pose of the ring. How­ev­er, there is a high prob­a­bil­i­ty that the girl will want to return it, so as not to remind her­self of the can­celed wed­ding.
• If the cou­ple bought the ring togeth­er, it should be dis­posed of like oth­er things bought for the wed­ding. For exam­ple, sell or return to a jew­el­ry store and split the returned funds.

Do I need to return gifts?

If, after the announce­ment of the upcom­ing wed­ding, you received any gifts in hon­or of this, then you should return them, not for­get­ting to thank the guests once again. The excep­tion is only things that you have already had time to use. If some­one insists that you keep a gift for your­self, you should accept it with grat­i­tude. How­ev­er, con­sid­er your own feel­ings: if things remind you of unpleas­ant events, it is bet­ter to ask the giv­er for per­mis­sion to sell the thing, give it to char­i­ty or donate it. Maybe it will be a lit­tle uncom­fort­able, but in this case, do not sac­ri­fice your own psy­cho­log­i­cal com­fort for the sake of polite­ness.

What to do with wedding images?

If the groom’s suit and wed­ding shoes can still be used for oth­er events with an offi­cial dress code or even adapt­ed to every­day life, then every­thing is dif­fer­ent with the wed­ding dress. Still, you can’t wear it to a meet­ing with girl­friends in a cof­fee shop.

The first step is to con­tact the salon or ate­lier where you ordered the wed­ding dress. Or autho­rize some­one close to you to do it for you, if doing it is too unpleas­ant. Salons are not so rarely faced with return­ing dress­es or can­cel­ing orders, so they have a cer­tain algo­rithm of actions for such a case. If you haven’t even had time to pick up the dress and fin­ish the sewing, you can return a sig­nif­i­cant part of the mon­ey.

In the event that it was not pos­si­ble to return the wed­ding dress to the salon, it can be sold on Inter­net sites, hand­ed over to a cloth­ing rental ser­vice, or donat­ed to char­i­ty.

If the can­celed wed­ding is not a trau­mat­ic mem­o­ry for you, and oth­er meth­ods of “dis­pos­ing” of the dress did not work, then the wed­ding dress can be re-stitched. Depend­ing on the style, fab­ric and decor, the arti­sans from the ate­lier will help you cre­ate new wardrobe ele­ments using mate­ri­als from the dress. A snow-white sum­mer suit, a cock­tail dress or a lux­u­ri­ous top will not inter­fere with your wardrobe 🙂

How­ev­er, if the dress or things made from it cause any neg­a­tiv­i­ty or sad­ness — get rid of them urgent­ly so as not to embar­rass your heart.

Can advances paid to contractors be returned?

It depends on the terms of the con­tract you entered into with spe­cial­ists or firms, as well as how much time is left until the date you booked. The clos­er to the wed­ding date, the less mon­ey you will be able to return. When con­clud­ing the con­tract, be care­ful about the refund part, and espe­cial­ly about the list of cir­cum­stances that will be con­sid­ered valid. For exam­ple, can­cel­ing a wed­ding due to your per­son­al rea­sons may not fall under the con­cept of force majeure from the point of view of the con­tract, so the deposit will either be returned at a low­er per­cent­age or not at all.

If you did not sign a con­tract with a spe­cial­ist at all, then the chances of get­ting mon­ey back are min­i­mal and depend on the pro­fes­sion­al’s per­son­al pol­i­cy.