Natural Disasters and Wedding Insurance

Why would I ever want wedding insurance?

Wedding insurance is a fairly new concept to most brides. I know when I got married five years ago no one ever knew or talked about it. Now there is more mention of it but there is still some unknowns about what exactly it covers and why you would ever need it. November 30 is the official end date of the hurricane season in Florida and we definitely had an interesting season this year. So I would like to take the time today to prepare brides getting married during next year’s hurricane season some important details concerning all the talk about wedding insurance. I did some digging to shed some light on this mystery topic in order to give you some insight on why you might want to really consider buying insurance for your wedding.

After reading through sample contract on Wedsafe’s website and their FAQ section, I would highly recommend wedding insurance to two groups of brides. Any bride can benefit from wedding insurance but the two who I feel should really invest in it (and it’s not even that expensive when compared to what you would lose if God forbid something did happen to your wedding) is any military brides and any bride marrying during the hurricane season (June 1- Nov 30).

So what exactly does wedding insurance cover?

There are two different kinds of insurance Wedsafe offers: Liability and Cancellation. I am going to go in depth on the Cancellation insurance since it pertains more to those two types of brides I mentioned above. In short thought, the Liability insurance that Wedsafe offers covers problems that arise from unruly guests, damage to venues by guests or vendors, or any medical expenses that may arise.

Cancellation insurance as explained by Wedsafe covers: “Special Event Cancellation / Postponement Plus insurance is designed to safeguard your event investments from unexpected mishaps. Various coverage limits are available to meet your budget. The policy covers event cancellation / postponement and losses such as no-show vendors, bankruptcy of vendors, damage to event attire, theft of event gifts and more.”

So what does this mean to my military brides? If I had known about this when I was getting married I definitely would have bought it. As many of you know I am a Navy wife and we were one of the few fortunate couples that could actually plan our wedding without any interruptions from the Navy. Ryan was training to be a pilot in our hometown of Pensacola, Florida, and when he proposed I knew I had to plan my wedding as quickly as possible before they sent him to his next station. Many did not have this luxury or if they thought they did they were in for a surprise when new military orders would pop up and completely halt the wedding planning in progress while your loved one deployed or moved. And sometimes your fiance’s current commanding officer would say that he could take off for the wedding weekend but when the week of the wedding came your fiance’s leave wasn’t approved. Leaving you without your groom (or bride) on your wedding day. I’ve seen this happen and you don’t know how heartbreaking that is. Here is a direct excerpt from Wedsafe about military postponements: 

“Yes, an Event Cancellation / Postponement Insurance Policy will provide coverage if the bride or groom is serving full-time active duty in the armed forces or police or fire departments and must postpone the event due to a previously granted written leave being withdrawn due to circumstances outside of their control (e.g., unforeseen deployment). The activation of a US military reservist, after the purchase of the policy, that requires deployment to more than 150 miles from the event location would also be covered.”

Many times it is an act of God to have leave approved in the military. Most only approving it in life or death situations. Which is very sad and stressful to deal with when as a Navy wife we are already sacrificing so much for our fiance’s career.

Now let’s talk about the “unexpected mishaps that may occur” in the Cancellation Insurance policy. This is for all of my brides getting married in the southeast of the U.S. that are vulnerable to hurricanes during the hurricane season. We have had a lull in really strong storms recently (over 10+ years since hurricane Ivan and Katrina which hit the gulf coast) and it has put the majority of us in a state of complacency regarding storms. Last year Jacksonville, Fl, had a wake up call with hurricane Matthew. And this year it was hurricane Irma. Many photographers in the area, including myself, struggled to find coverage for their brides who were still trying to make their dream wedding come true and I honestly believe that if they had had wedding insurance then there would have been no reason to try to still have a wedding the weekend of a hurricane. When you make that decision a lot of people are put at risk; the venue, vendors, and guests included. Factors outside of your control have to be considered such as evacuation orders, closed bridges, and wind speeds prior to when the storm actually hits.

This is the quintessential reason to have wedding insurance if you are planning a wedding in the middle of hurricane season. With that peace of mind you can rest easy that your investment in such a big monumental day is covered. We know how important your wedding day is to you and we want to see your dreams come true! We don’t want you to have to make that call if you are worried about losing your investment. You need to make the best call for yourself, your guests, and your vendors when faced with any unforeseen circumstances. 

Here are some other situations in which Wedsafe was able to cover their insured bride:

Groom experienced chest pains and went to hospital. Newly diagnosed heart condition forced him to postpone wedding. 
Amount Reimbursed through Event Cancellation coverage – $28,907.45

Bride’s father had bicycle accident and broke his pelvis; ceremony postponed. 
Amount Reimbursed through Event Cancellation coverage – $13,563.23

Hurricane Katrina forced the bride and groom to cancel their wedding.
Amount Reimbursed through Event Cancellation coverage – $17,952.32

Check out other examples of claims on Wedsafe’s website here.

Well there you have it. Some solid reasons on why you should strongly consider insuring your wedding day. It is too important and too big of an investment for you not to protect. The number one reason marriages don’t work is because of finances. And if something were to happen that you were already out of money and without a wedding to show for it would definitely be setting you up on the wrong foot to begin with. I don’t want that for you nor do any of your loved ones. I hope I provided some insights on this topic. If I have let me know in the comments below. And check out the links above to Wedsafe that I provided. Lots of additional information is provided on their website. Thank you for reading this rather long and sobering blog post. I only want what’s best for you. xoxo