When my husband and I got married, we had our eyes on all things cheap. We were (and still are, I guess) pretty young, and I had barely just graduated college. We were more concerned with saving money than blowing it on a knock-down, drag-out catered affair for one hundred fifty of our “closest” friends. That isn’t and has never been our style. We had our wedding reception poolside at my parents’ house with homemade centerpieces, a CD changer full of our own music, and a few rented chafing dishes of delicious Italian food that we’d ordered and picked up from our local pizza place. I bought my dress online for one hundred fifty bucks, and it was the biggest splurge of the whole shebang. We ordered our flowers from a wholesaler and put bouquets together ourselves. I did my own hair. We had a friend take pictures. Our thrifty nuptials cost a fraction of the average wedding in America today, which is running around twenty-eight thousand dollars.
Wedding insurance wouldn’t have been a big deal for hubby and myself, since we had a guest list of less than forty and a microscopic budget. One of my best high school friends, however, got married that same year surrounded by professionally-arranged red roses, wore a designer dress of vintage lace and pearls, and walked down the aisle to the airy sounds of a live string quartet. She had well over one hundred guests and six bridesmaids. There was an open bar, and we danced until midnight instead of eleven because they had paid for the venue to stay open for an extra hour. Her wedding cost over forty thousand dollars – I asked! – and while I don’t know if she had wedding insurance, it might have definitely been a good idea in her case. Weddings in this day and age can be divided into two distinct categories – the drive-through ‘I do’s’ in Vegas / the backyard hoedowns (like mine), and then the massive June-fantasy ceremonies like you see in bridal magazines. For the first category, we have faith and crossed fingers. For the latter, we have wedding insurance.
Wedding insurance protects you on your big day against a variety of possible marital mishaps. If getting to the church on time doesn’t happen, your insurance plan can cover you for setting a replacement appointment with the pastor. If your hand-picked gourmet caterer gets a nasty notice from the health department within days of your reception, the insurer will pay to get you a speedy replacement chef to whip up your guests’ choice of seared Chilean sea bass or filet mignon with a mushroom demi glaze. Many conventional insurers have added wedding insurance polices to their standard menu, with more and more companies making the leap every year.
It’s a reflection of the rising cost of getting hitched these days, say experts. The price of the average wedding has dipped somewhat since the halcyon days before the recession hit, but it’s still up there with the comparable price of a new car. Conde Nast, publisher of Brides magazine, says that nearly one-third of all American lovebirds pay for their own wedding, and thirty-six percent will exceed their budget. It’s not hard to do, considering how much crap the wedding industry tries to tell brides and grooms that they “need,” ranging from professionally embossed stationary (save-the-date cards, invites and RSVP cards, table cards, and thank you notes) to out-of-season hothouse blooms in the attendant bouquets, designer silk lingerie for under the bride’s gown to an aisle runner dyed to match the maid of honor’s gown, and a vintage piece of jewelry to pin to the bridal bouquet. Don’t even get me started on the cost of an exotic honeymoon at an all-inclusive resort or how much it costs to rent the darned fancy chair covers and coordinating tie-backs! A typical wedding insurance premium ranges from ninety-five to over one thousand dollars, based upon the cost of your wedding and how much coverage you elect to purchase. If you are having a big white wedding, this may amount to little more than a drop in your bucket.
Wedding insurance covers a variety of incidents that could mar your big day. The first of those is liability. If your junior bridesmaid trips and breaks an ankle on her high heels, or if a sodden guest has one too many Cape Cods and hits the floor when reaching for an imaginary canapé, you would be covered much in the same way as traditional liability insurance under a homeowner’s policy. Whether you need this specific coverage for your event depends on the venue at which you are getting married and/or having your reception. Some places include this kind of insurance in the rental cost, while others will require you to purchase your own insurance.
Your wedding venue itself will also be protected under your insurance policy. What if your childhood church where you’ve dreamed since practically birth of walking down the aisle should happen to burn down the night before your ceremony? Or if a hurricane/earthquake/tornado should happen to trash your reception venue? Acts of God that destroy your reception and/or ceremony are covered by insurance. You might have to postpone your wedding until the venue of choice can be repaired, or you might have to wait for a slot to open up on a Saturday evening in your second choice locale, but the costs will be covered.
Another facet of wedding insurance that might be purchased is coverage for the health and wellbeing of all the main players in your event – think mom, dad, yourself or your soon-to-be spouse, or a member of the wedding party. Some wedding policies include insurance against death or illness. If your honey gets a wicked case of food poisoning from the buffet at the rehearsal dinner, your insurance will pick up the cost of any “non-refundable” deposits on service providers and cover the price tag for switching your wedding date. Likewise, if –heaven forbid, because this is serious- any one of your parents should pass away in the days before your union, the insurer would eat the cost of postponing everything until your head was clear and you could move forward.
Even your wedding dress could be insured with one of these policies! One of the most common claims against wedding insurance policies is on bridal gowns that were lost when the doors of the boutique were barred due to a sudden bankruptcy – especially in these turbulent economic times. One of my friends – not the one with the roses and the string quartet – was hysterically crying less than three days before her happy day when she showed up for the final fitting of her very expensive designer wedding gown at the bridal shop she’d selected, and found that the owner had skipped town when the entire chain went broke. My friend had to settle for a borrowed gown and take the deadbeat dressmaker to court afterwards, but a bride with wedding insurance could have been all set to purchase a replacement. Likewise, damages to the groomsmen’s rented tuxedos are also covered under this type of plan: a very good thing for the moment when your new husband’s frat brothers decide to jump in the fountain outside the reception hall.
Your insurance will also protect your wedding gifts. If you are having a big and spendy ceremony, this can really mean something. It’s not at all unusual for well-off brides to register for china that costs two hundred dollars a place setting, or for artisan stand mixers (this DIY, thrifty bride was even guilty of that one!) that run four to five hundred dollars a pop. If a shady reception venue employee were to make off with your engraved sterling silver picture frames or Tiffany cobalt vase that you received as a gift, your insurance will pay for a replacement.
Other types of venders are also covered under wedding insurance. What if your wedding photographer’s camera gets dunked in a fountain (possibly by a rowdy groomsman), or if the pictures all come out blurry? Your insurance will pay for the cost of hiring someone new and restaging the pictures. What if the bakers of your wedding cake disappear with your deposit? Your insurance will pay for a stat replacement. Your musicians get ill? Book someone new, your insurer will pick up the tab. In short, if you are paying a lot for your wedding, I humbly submit that you might not be able to afford to go WITHOUT insurance!
That doesn’t mean, however, that there are not exceptions to what wedding insurance will cover. While these policies are meant to give brides and grooms total piece of mind as they approach the happiest day of their lives, that doesn’t mean that your insurer will blindly pay any claim that you submit. One big and notable example of a situation that would NOT be covered by wedding insurance? Runaway brides or grooms who let cold feet get the best of them. Insurers insist that this exception is designed to weed out cases of fraud, and is also not under their purview since a change of heart is fully preventable and any form of insurance is designed to protect against circumstances beyond your control. Now, I should add that certain wedding insurance companies have started to amend this policy somewhat, so that completely innocent parties with a financial stake in the wedding can be reimbursed for losses suffered as the result of a runaway bride or groom. Let’s say that the father of the bride has fulfilled his traditional duty and forked up the cost for a lavish reception. If his would-be son-in-law jilts his little girl, Daddy might get reimbursed for his losses under certain plans. (The cost of a shotgun and a few bullets is not covered, before you even ask.)
Existing medical conditions are also not covered in policies that protect health and wellbeing. If a parent has an outstanding cardiac history, their heart attack will probably not be considered a covered event for postponing the wedding. A first-time heart attack would be covered, of course.
There are ways to protect your investment in your wedding that don’t require the purchase of specialized insurance, even if no one method is all-inclusive or quite as reassuring. The Better Business Bureau’s recommendations include exhaustive preliminary research on your venders before you sign any contracts. How long has your bridal boutique been open? Who are your photographer’s referrals? Does your catering company have a longstanding bill of health from the health inspector? What’s the storm history for your wedding date in the town where you’ll be saying your vows? Knowing all these things can help you make the best decisions possible for making common-sense choices in choosing the people and things that will help your wedding come together. That’s not to say that it’s impossible that something completely unforeseen will happen to trash your big day, but sometimes it’s all about minimizing risks.
You should also make sure that your deposits are no larger than they have to be. Don’t put any extra down, in other words. Keeping your deposits as small as possible will minimize your losses in the event that your wedding needs to be called off or postponed. You can’t avoid some non-refundable deposits, but minimizing them is certainly your best bet. Likewise, experts say that you should use a credit card whenever possible to pay for aspects of your wedding with the potential to go wrong, so that you can dispute the charges for services that sucked or products that didn’t do their job. That way, if your food makes people sick or your gown rips as soon as “Here Comes the Bride” starts playing, you can request money back from your card issuer. Save all your receipts so that you have potential future documentation if need be.
Look, I know that I’ve said a lot of silly things about big weddings in this post, but my advice as to how you can avoid losing money on wedding disasters is to be very careful about how you are spending it in the first place. Is it really worth tens of thousands of dollars to have a huge wedding, when the whole point of a marriage ceremony is to celebrate your love and union? You should never go into debt for a wedding, and that’s not just my advice – that’s everyone’s advice.
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