On the 6th August 2021 – my girlfriend Laura hijacked her surprise birthday party that I had organised, and chose that moment to propose to me. I was in complete shock as we had always said that I would propose, but then again, Laura never really sticks to a plan or listens to what we agree on anyway, so I don’t know why I was so surprised! 😊😊😊
Shortly after we were engaged, we quickly started looking at venues, and we fell in love with Sopley Mill in Christchurch. We arranged a viewing, loved it even more, so we paid the deposit and booked the venue. We were due to get married on the 14th April 2023. At this time, Laura was smashing her sales job, with a great commission structure; I was new into my role, but I was already bringing in decent commission from my sales manager role, so we were both pretty confident, even with all the extras we wanted, that we would be able to save enough money to pay for the wedding.
We booked the photographer, the registrar, the venue and provisionally booked the caterers and the band. I had chosen my Bridesmaids (yes, all 7 of them!!!) and Laura had her Bridesmen! Everything was in full swing for us to plan the best day of our lives.
In October, we were already hit with a bit of a blow financially as Laura’s company completely changed their commission structure and targets, etc, which meant that even hitting the same results, she was now earning half the commission she was. We decided just to re-budget and reduce some of the items on our wish list to ensure we could still have the best day!
And then my diagnosis came. My employers have been incredible! They are paying me full pay for a period, but that guarantee is going to run out in a few months and who knows what will happen then? SSP will not cover my mortgage let alone any other bills I have, and unfortunately, I couldn’t get my Critical Illness Cover with Life insurance, so I don’t have a lump sum payout to fall back on. Little did I know, that had my dad not mentioned it to us both, we had both been thinking the same about cancelling the wedding. (Sometimes it does take an outsider to say the thing you have both been thinking!! How stupid is that! Ha!)
We had both been worrying about money, but just didn’t want to say anything to the other one to put any pressure on each other. So we made the decision today to cancel our wedding. Not completely – just postpone and pick it up again when we have the headspace to think about it.
Luckily – most of the vendors (other than Sopley Mill) gave us a full refund due to the circumstances.
We have thought about just getting married and having a party – but even just thinking about organising that doesn’t feel me with joy – just pressure. So for now, we are focusing on me getting better, and we can start organising our wedding when I am going to enjoy it again.