Mell

Hi Problem Pal. My partner and I could really use some advice on what to do.

We’re planning to marry on the 17th of April at our dream venue; we were lucky to get the date with all of the 2020 weddings being moved, and we put down a non-refundable 50% deposit right away to secure it.

We’ve been getting things organised but we haven’t sent out our invitations yet; we were planning to print them next week after we confirmed the timings with the church.

This week, we received a wedding invitation in the post from some friends who got engaged last year – for a wedding on the 17th of April!

We’re not the closest of friends with them; this is probably just bad luck rather than anything deliberate. But we do have a lot of mutual friends in common who we really want to be at our wedding.

I haven’t said anything to our friend circle yet. One close friend suggested splitting the day between weddings or asking half the friends to go to one wedding and half to the other, but I don’t think that would feel right.

I’d be fine re-scheduling our day so everyone could come to both weddings, but there’s no dates available at our venue for the rest of the year. We’d need to find a new venue, which we don’t want to do, and lose the 50% deposit, which we can’t afford, or delay our wedding even longer.

We’ve also paid deposits for the car, the band, and pre-booked the church; all the contracts say we’d have to pay a fee to move the dates, or lose the deposits if we cancel all together. It adds up to a lot of money!

We’d hugely appreciate any suggestions on what we can do.