How should my clients protect themselves?

This question is from a luxury wedding planner in the United States:

Thank you so much for sharing this post, Liene. I've definitely looked to you throughout this pandemic to be a reality check and voice of wisdom through uncharted territory.

I think you are spot on and have been starting to have this conversation with other industry professionals. Just this past weekend, I had a wedding of 200 (I'm a planner) of completely vaccinated guests. The day after the wedding, one vaccinated guest tested positive. It's not over and I'm really worried about planning for end of 2021 and into Spring/Summer 2022, especially for our international weddings.

My question to you: Do you think it is realistic to be planning for a destination (Europe) wedding for about 150 guests next June? What advice can you give about being authentically optimistic but also guiding our clients to protect themselves before signing major contracts?

Answer from Liene:

I have written and deleted, rewritten and re-deleted this post and my answer several times. I had an answer scheduled to post and then unscheduled it because I wanted to give it more thought. Here is what I’ve landed on:

My short answer is this:

I think it should be okay to have your client’s wedding in Europe in June 2022 if all of the guests and wedding professionals are vaccinated, but you should still have a backup plan.

Here is my longer answer:

We are currently in a post-pandemic wedding boom in the U.S. as rescheduled weddings are finally happening.

But the reality, like you mentioned, is that we are not post-pandemic. We are very much still in it.

Whether or not your clients are comfortable having a destination wedding overseas is going to come down to their own level of risk tolerance, both emotionally and financially.

And there is definitely both emotional and financial risk. The regulations for U.S. travelers to Europe have changed twice in the past eight weeks and we’re likely to see them change multiple times again by next Summer.

Case in point: last week, the European Union announced that they were closing their borders again to unvaccinated travelers from the U.S.

Every country has the right and responsibility to protect their citizens (even if the past year and a half has shown us that some don’t seem to take that responsibility seriously).

Each country has their own laws driven by their own respective constitution and they do not have to follow the U.S. constitution because, uh . . . they are not the U.S.

I bring this up only because some Americans tend to believe that when they travel they are still protected by U.S. laws when in reality they are under the laws of the country they are in.

While many couples opting for a destination wedding are typically well-traveled and “internationally savvy,” sometimes their guests are not. And as I mentioned in a previous post, educating guests on the travel issues and constantly updated Covid protocols related to destination weddings often unfairly lands on the plate of the planner.

As I said: each country has a duty to protect its citizens to the best of its abilities, and border closures and quarantine requirements are part of that.

While we may consider certain measures a bit extreme or question their effectiveness, the fact of the matter is if they're in place at the time of the event, they're in place and your clients aren't getting in. We have to take reality as it is rather than as we wished it would be.

If they decide to move forward with a destination wedding rather than choosing to do it at home, here are some things to keep in mind and ways to prepare for the “what ifs” —

Have contingency plans. Have a “go or no go” date by which you'll make a final decision.
Build potential quarantine costs into the budget, not only for your clients on their end, but for you and any staff traveling with you. This includes the hotel costs, food, etc for 10+ extra days. This can be written into a contract addendum as scope increase, and billed accordingly. If it isn't required, you won't bill for it.
Most wedding insurance and travel insurance WILL NOT COVER anything Covid-related, so read the fine print, no matter what the sales person told your client.
If you haven't already, update your contracts to include “Acts of Man” not just “Acts of God.”

Talk to an attorney about this, obviously, but remember that just because something is in your contract does not make it legal and does not mean it will hold up in court.
As for signing contracts, steer your clients towards wedding vendors and suppliers who are vaccinated.

I know this is controversial, but event professionals are in for a rude awakening if they think that they will be able to work in certain venues/cities/countries without being vaccinated.

I said before that some private businesses would require vendors to show proof of vaccine status the same way they’ve required proof of liability insurance coverage and we’re already seeing that happening.

Also, as the wedding planner, you do not want to be scrambling to find a vaccinated florist with enough product available and the skillset to design a luxury floral installation day-of because the unvaccinated florist that was already booked thought they were the exception to the rule and then found themselves denied entry at customs or by the venue. (This is a real life example, unfortunately.)
When it comes to the wedding pros they are signing contracts with, make sure those vendors have the following outlined in their agreements: the safety protocols they’re following, what happens to their deposits and other financial payments if the wedding ends up not happening, and what happens if they test positive and can’t show.
I mentioned this in a previous post, but have back-up design and layout schematics that account for social distancing in case those policies get implemented again.
Your demeanor will go a long way in setting the tone for how everyone else reacts — staying calm under pressure is a big reason wedding planners get hired.

For peace of mind for your wedding clients, set up a schedule of how and when you are going to keep them updated on various changes that come up and ask them who they want included. Maybe that looks like an email every Monday to the two grooms and their moms aren’t on those updates but one of their sisters or best man is.

The key with this is to over-communicate in a way that does not breed panic and reassures them that you are paying attention and staying on top of things for them. It also sets the precedent that you are not going to respond to a frantic text at 1 am eight months before the wedding because they saw a news headline while scrolling Twitter in bed. It can likely wait until morning . . . or the following Monday.

People want to feel seen and heard, and this method allows you to do that without feeding into the chaos of what can be a very chaotic news cycle.

All of this is a lot to navigate, and it will unfortunately continue to be that way for a while. A virus does not care about our businesses, our plans, our politics — it is up to us to adjust to the facts of it so that we can hopefully be done with this as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, the two things that are going to prolong this the most are:

a) inequity of vaccine access (while there is ubiquitous access in the U.S., that is not the case for all countries and some countries currently won’t receive the vaccine until mid-2022), and

b) vaccine hesitancy from people who do have access.

To deal with the things outside of your control, I would recommend building some type of self-care into your routine, especially if you’ve let it lapse post-quarantine.

I know that can seem like a ridiculous suggestion given how busy everyone is with rescheduled events that aren’t necessarily making them money at this point and kids being home again because of more school closures, but it will be key to you not burning out.

You all know how much meditation changed my life, but for you, realistic self-care might look like doing a 10 minute core class on the Peloton app every day or setting aside time each week to try a new recipe — whatever gets you out of your head in a healthy way so that you can have the capacity to handle all of the uncertainty that comes with the job (and life) right now.

*While I’ve talked to my attorney, they are not your attorney and none of this should be considered legal advice. Always run anything by your own lawyer who knows your local laws and specific business.

Questions from Wedding Pros

Have a question on a sticky client issue, running a wedding company, or an aspect of business you feel you should know by now yet don’t?

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Written by
LIENE STEVENS

Liene Stevens, the founder and CEO of Think Splendid, is an author, speaker, and award-winning business strategist. Armed with $2000, a healthy work ethic, and an undeserved dose of privilege, Liene bootstrapped Think Splendid from a scribble in a notebook to a successful wedding business consulting firm with a client list spanning 97 countries