Our best bits of 2020 (including Covid pandemic weddings and lockdown madness)
Every year Neil puts together our ‘best of video’… but 2020 didn’t pan out like all the other years! Covid pandemic weddings showed us something entirely new.
Just about every wedding was cancelled as lockdowns hit and we joined our clients on a rollercoaster of rescheduling and replanning. There some tears. and this year, not all of them were happy ones.
In the gaps between the harshest lockdowns, some couples squeezed in a micro wedding and we gratefully took those jobs with a view to do whatever we could to make them epic. Sometimes having to shoot through a window from outside the ceremony even. Numbers were limited, nobody could touch or sing. Everyone covered their faces.
Covid pandemic weddings were weird and wonderful!
Covid pandemic weddings really were weird and wonderful. For such a long time everyone was left not knowing what normal looked like, seperated from friends and family. Everything was disrupted. For a while it was actually illegal for us to go outdoors and do our job. In amongst that, those little bits of community, love, family and happiness were amplified in a way none of us had ever experienced. That was wonderful.
So this year Lisa decided she’d do an extra video ‘the-whole-of-2020-in-chronological-order’ including personal photos and of course, cats. We liked it so much we thought we’d show both!
We wanted to take this as an opportunity to say ‘thank you’ to our couples. Thank you for being awesome and kind and genuine. With different couples, 2020 could easily have broken us, but we’re still here and can’t wait for all the good things to come when you get married.
2020 in chronological order
‘Best of’ wedding video
If you’re at the planning stage for your wedding do go look at our wedding blog where we have lots of useful tips!
2023 Update – Covid pandemic weddings – The aftermath.
It seemed to us that it’d be helpful to leave a record of what happened after Covid for us and our couples. Unfortunately pandemics aren’t uncommon but we’d seen our country seem so unprepared and often disorganised. Having some record of these momentous events available from a personal perspective might be helpful for folks in the future. Maybe take away some of the fright.
Covid pandemic weddings advice
OK, so for couples first, what did we learn?
- Firstly, get yourself wedding insurance. many couples appreciated the help (financially and otherwise) that insurance brought them in rescheduling and restagging cancelled weddings. It isn’t expensive and can save a mess becoming a disaster.
- Contracts – Having proper contracts in place with professional and reputable businesses is essential. They only really count when things get tricky and then they can be really helpful. The surprise here though is that contracts can be ‘frustrated’ which is the legal description meaning neither party can complete their end of the bargain and neither is at fault. That’s the case for lots of Covid pandemic weddings situations.
- Be flexible. Of course a significant change in plans can take the wind out of your sails and those around you. All that emotion, planning and money suddenly at risk is potentially devastating. We saw so much sadness from everyone initially but over time, people picked up and made new plans. The folks who adjusted most quickly and adapted to the ‘new normal’ variants, absolutely won!
- Stay in touch. We got a heap of phone calls as each stage of the lockdown was announced. Couples were worried and overwhelmed, we were too. over time of course we built up a picture of what was happening, how it was affecting plans/couples/venues/registrars etc and we became ‘experts’ where no official advice really existed. Going through all that together and in touch meant we could all adapt and improvise to get the best out of the situation. Aside from that, it really reinforced our relationships with our clients and some have become permanent friends since. Anyway, burying your head in the sand about these things won’t get you the best outcomes.
Covid pandemic weddings – advice for photographers.
We hope you don’t ever need to search for this advice on Google, but sometime, somewhere, someone will. Here are a few things we hope will calm you, help you and help your couples have the best wedding in hard times. Feel free to email, if we can help we’ll try.
- Stay calm – it seemed to us that the government response was poor and that information to help businesses and couples was thin or missing entirely. Keep your radio on, use the internet, grab all the information you can from reputable sources and over time you’ll have a picture of what is or isn’t happening and how you can adjust.
- Be in touch. It’s absolutely best to get in touch with your couples sooner rather than later. These are folks who may need help and reassurance and you’re in a position to assist. Do it. All subsequent plans and activities will benefit from your involvement and you’ll also pick up brilliant tips and information from couples which you can share around to help others.
- Check all your paperwork. if you don’t use a contract, stop advertising your services and get one in place. A contract is the legal sign of your good intent to be fair and professional. That said, ours was great pre-Covid and needed tweaking as we discovered new things like having to reschedule a date not once but three times for one couple!
- Get on top of your admin on day one! All your schedules and plans are going to be jiggled around. Dates are going to move for many of your planned weddings and couples will be struggling to get confirmed dates as venues and all the other suppliers are also rescheduling ad-hoc. Having all your calendar information up to date all the time is essential.
- Keep on top of your finances. Potentially you don’t have any income now and there amy or may not be any furlough or similar help from government. You will have to refund payments for couples who through no fault of their own have to cancel (see contracts here). You might have to go get a normal job to fill the gaps. Lots of folks went out of business in the first week.
- Be kind – To yourself and to others. It’ll be a bit of a shit storm but being kind and helpful counts for so much in reducing the upset for all concerned.
