Jamie Wolfer explains how COVID-19 exposed a gap in wedding contracts: traditional force-majeure clauses didn't cover postponements, leaving vendors without recourse. Now many contracts add postponement language, but it only defines the problem rather than solving it.
COVID took the wedding industry by complete surprise. None of us vendors were prepared for anything of this magnitude. A lot of times people will bring up an act of God clause or a force majeure clause in a situation like this, but none of us were ready for this. So we ran into issues with things like postponing. We had no recourse. We had no way to have this conversation of how do we continue with our contractual agreement with one another in the face of something like a worldwide pandemic. And now, of course, we're seeing a lot more of this language around postponement in contracts in general, but a statement regarding postponement delineates the risk. It doesn't help you manage it.
