Wedding Insurance: A Small Price to Pay to Protect Your Investment

You’ve saved for months and planned your elaborate wedding to the very last detail. You’ve booked all of your wedding professionals, had the last fitting of your dress and now the only thing left to do is count down the days until you become Mr. and Mrs.

And then it happens. A hurricane. An ice storm. An injury of an immediate family member. A destructive fire that sweeps through your venue. Perhaps you’ve paid for a service only to find out the company has either gone bankrupt or fails to show up on the day of your wedding. All devastating events and certainly ones you wouldn’t think would ever happen during your wedding weekend. But take it from me, they do. As a professional wedding photographer in Newport, I’ve witnessed some of these unfortunate events, and it hurts me to see a bride and groom lose thousands of dollars because they didn’t think to protect their financial investment. Canceling your wedding is already emotionally devastating, so by planning ahead you can prevent it from becoming a financial disaster.

And while you think it might be your wedding professional’s responsibility to cover your costs if your wedding is postponed, it’s not.  They’ve booked out their time, and have used their own money and resources getting ready for your special day. While the situation is not fair to you, it’s also not fair for them to incur expenses for circumstances beyond their control.

Immediately after you book your services, begin researching insurance plans from companies like Newport Insurance – you need to be thorough and make sure the policy covers all of your non-refundable deposits. The majority of your wedding vendors, including myself, do state in their contracts that retainers are non-refundable. And when you think about how much you’re spending on the day itself, it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind knowing that if something goes wrong, you’ll get all of your money back. You need to consider wedding insurance like any other insurance you would purchase to protect you from worst case scenarios (just think of your home, auto, life and health insurance policies). In fact, the cost of insurance is most likely less than what you’d pay for a pair of heels you’d wear down the aisle.

And since I’m on the subject of feet, just one final note… While wedding insurance covers problems with sites, weather, vendors, family and even last-minute military leave, the only thing it doesn’t cover are cold feet!