2020 was a rollercoaster wasn’t it? While we’re all still on some kind of lockdown and deeply saddened by the tragic and frightening health effects that Covid-19 is having across the globe, it’s also wreaking havoc with many major life plans we’d made.
Many weddings, and therefore also hen parties have been affected by Covid-19.
While there are definitely much more serious consequences of the Coronavirus, if you’ve been planning, financing and looking forward to the biggest weekend of your life for months, you’re going to be feeling very disappointed and concerned about where to go from here.
Help! – Corona cancelled my hen
We’re going to take you through some scenarios and FAQs surrounding your hen party and Coronavirus, as well as looking into your consumer rights in the UK for anything you have already booked.
Firstly, we want you to know that we understand this is a really stressful time. You’ve likely been making preparations for your hen party and wedding for months, if not years, and it’s completely OKAY to be very disappointed and sad about this.
So allow yourself to wallow in it for a bit. Be upset, scream, shout and throw things if it helps. Then it’s time to pick yourself up and start sorting things out so you can make the most of a pretty rubbish situation.
Here’s a quick to-do list for you to run through if your hen or wedding has been cancelled due to Coronavirus. Hopefully your Maid-of-Honour can help you (remotely) to tick these tasks off:
- Contact any accommodation or activities you have already booked and check whether they have cancelled your booking if your event was due to take place in the next few weeks, or if they’ve sent any information about postponing or refunds if your hen party is later in the year.
- Communicate: Once you know what the situation is with anything you have booked, depending on when you hen do is scheduled, you’ll need to send a message out to all the hens and give them an update on the current situation.
- Discuss with your Maid-of-Honour and bridesmaids as to what your options might be. If your wedding has been postponed then it definitely makes sense to try and get a date in the calendar for a rescheduled hen weekend later in the year.
Free to download and use
If your hen do has been cancelled due to Coronavirus then you’ll probably have a bunch of hens to inform and lots of new arrangements to make.
To help you quickly let your hens know what is going on, we’ve made this free downloadable that you can use on your social media or send in a whatsapp. Just hold and save the image then feel free to use it however it may help you.
Covid-19: Can I cancel my hen party and get a refund?
This is a question that many of us are wondering about right now as we realise that all the plans we made for 2020 and some of 2021 at least are likely to be thrown up in the air thanks to Corona. Let’s delve into the legal nitty-gritty of cancellations.
The Citizen’s Advice Bureau has released specialised information on your consumer rights regarding cancellations due to Coronavirus.
Whether you can cancel your hen party booking and receive a full refund or have the right to postpone for free does always depend on the terms of the contract you agreed to when you booked.
This will depend on what your terms and conditions are.
Consumer rights and Coronavirus: Accommodation
- If your original accommodation booking was non-refundable and you choose to cancel because you are concerned about Coronavirus, it is unlikely that you will be entitled to receive a refund from the company or your travel insurance.
- However, if the government has advised against all but essential travel to the place you have made your booking, then you might be able to get a refund, depending on the terms and conditions of your contract with the accommodation provider and your travel insurance, if you have any.
Some companies are asking their guests to reschedule their booking for a later date in 2021. This measure is usually taken by companies who are concerned about the business surviving the financial fallout of Covid-19 is going to have on the entertainment and tourism industry.
Coronavirus: Can I rebook my hen for a later date?
If your hen party has been thrown into uncertainty due to Covid-19, your best option might be to postpone your plans and rebook any accommodation or activities for a later date.
The advantage of this is that it means you can focus on planning for the new hen party date and avoid weeks of uncertainty over whether the date you had been planning for will go ahead or not.
However, it’s important to bear in mind that currently we don’t know how long it is going to take to contain this outbreak and that any plans you make later on won’t be certain either.
Even if that means that you risk your hen party taking place AFTER your wedding, we think this is a safer option and gives you a bit more peace of mind that there is plenty of time for things to go back to normal. Also, having a weekend away with your girls to look forward to after your wedding is pretty special.
If you want to rebook your hen party for a later date, the best thing to do is to get in touch with your booking provider, accommodation or activity provider.
Many companies have been forced to close their doors in order to contain the spread of the virus and they are likely to be very accommodating when it comes to securing your business when this is all over.
Corona and hen parties: when will things go back to normal?
This is a question that sadly nobody can answer at this point.
That said, there has been a definite move in the right direction with the roll-out of the vaccines getting underway.
If we were to reach the point that cases start to fall, it would still be a long road before we are fully back to normal with all services back up and running and people mixing normally again.
With that in mind, it’s definitely a good idea to spend some of your lockdown time making plans to reschedule your hen party.
Of course, if you want to make the most of your originally hen do date while in lockdown, we 100% recommend you plan a virtual hen do.
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