In February 2016, the parents of Dr Tristan Lue’s fiancee flew in from Korea to meet his family for the first time. Lue, a dentist based in Edgewater, New Jersey, felt a sudden shift in his year-long relationship. It became clear that his would-be in-laws did not approve of their union.

“Two days later, I got home and all the furniture was gone and just the ring was there on the table,” Lue, 43, said. “It’s like one of those Korean dramas.”

Beyond heartbreak, Lue had another problem: the nearly 200 guests who had RSVPed for their wedding in three months. Thankfully, the couple’s wedding planner, Diane Kolanović-Šolaja, the owner of Dee Kay Events in Howell, New Jersey, leapt into navigating logistics.

Not everyone has the luxury of a wedding planner, and even if they do, dealing with the aftermath of cancelled nuptials can be daunting. Here’s what to do — and what to avoid — according to wedding planners and laypeople who didn’t make it down the aisle.

Focus on your well-being

First and foremost, take care of your mental health.

“I definitely don’t think people should do what I did,” said Lue, adding that he started smoking marijuana and cigarettes and drinking to cope with his heartbreak. To emerge from that chapter, Lue was grateful that Kolanović-Šolaja, his parents and his siblings checked in on him regularly. He also started seeing a therapist once a week, running regularly and playing golf more.

After meeting “the one” on a business trip that spring, Jenna Volpe, 35, a registered dietitian in Austin, Texas, cancelled her September 2017 wedding at a New Hampshire castle for more than 200 guests, which was 14 weeks away.

“I came home and then two days later told my entire family, ‘Hey, I met someone in Toronto, and I’m gonna call off my wedding,’” she said. For Volpe, not having the support of her loved ones became an opportunity to tune into her heart. “I’ve always been a people-pleaser,” she said. “This was a transformational journey to ask questions like ‘What do I want?’”

Talk to your ex-partner … or not

It may sound harsh, but Kolanović-Šolaja said to approach a wedding cancellation like a business transaction. “If you want to be fair with each other and make a clean break, sit down and figure it out like you would with a colleague,” she said, noting that removing the emotional component can help the logistics of cancelling go “way smoother”.

Kolanović-Šolaja added that email was the best mode for conducting these interactions because it gives people time to compose their thoughts rather than sending heated texts or getting worked up on the phone or in person.

If you can’t have a civil exchange with your ex, Leah Weinberg, a New York City-based lawyer and the author of The Wedding Roller Coaster, suggests having a mutual friend or a relative who has a good relationship with both parties handle the logistics of reaching out to vendors and guests. If the couple can’t agree on one person who should do that for them, then each person could appoint a personal “representative”, and those two representatives could then work together, Weinberg said. And if you have a wedding planner, most will handle vendor outreach if you ask.

“It’s helpful to have a buffer” when you’re not in the right head space, she added.

Notify your vendors

Alerting your wedding vendors should be your first to-do. “The money you lose goes up the closer you get to the wedding,” said Cathy O’Connell, a founder of COJ Events in Palm Springs, California. If a couple is “thinking of cancelling, they’re better off doing it sooner than later”, she said.

Couples should also know their vendors’ cancellation policies from the outset. “Understand the cancellation provision that [your] vendor has in the contract,” Weinberg said. There’s always a deadline after which you owe an outstanding balance, she added.

“I always encourage couples to explain to vendors that they are cancelling the wedding because they are no longer together,” said Sara Bauleke, the owner of Bella Notte, a wedding planning firm in Washington DC. “You do get a sympathy nod.”

Alert wedding guests

“Have a strategy for letting guests know,” Weinberg said. This is another task to consider outsourcing to a friend or family member. Whatever you do, do not delay telling your guests, who may have booked travel and lodging.

But, she added, “you don’t owe your wedding guests a huge explanation”. Write an email like you would a news release, she suggested, ending with something like this: “We appreciate you respecting our privacy.”

Or, you can spread the word through a phone tree. After you tell your closest friends and family members, ask them to call other wedding guests. Volpe embraced the “divide and conquer” method, in which she told people on her side of the guest list and her ex-fiance tackled the other side. “I delegated some to my parents,” Volpe said. “I reached out to my friends individually with a call or text to fill them in.”

If people pry for details, Bauleke advised having a blanket statement ready. “It can be something as simple as ‘We decided that this was not the right decision for our lives,’” she said.

Rebook your vendors

It’s always worth asking your contractors about using them in another manner. Jenny Dreizen, 36, was inspired to start her business Fresh Start Registries, a free registry builder for those undergoing life transitions such as divorce, with her sister after she called off her May 2021 wedding. Dreizen ended up having her would-be wedding photographer come to her “single-girl apartment” and take photos of her, she said. You could also organise a shoot with friends, take pictures with a pet or schedule family portraits.

Though there may be a time limit for rebooking, such as six months or within the calendar year, in Bauleke’s experience most vendors will honour a wedding deposit toward another event.

What about wedding gifts?

Once you’ve decided to cancel your wedding, cut off your registry so guests don’t continue to purchase presents.

“One of the things that was weird to have was this monogrammed cake plate,” recalled Dreizen, who received many gifts for her 150-person wedding. “I was like, what am I going to do with this, with his initials and my initials on it?”

If the gifts aren’t personalised, some wedding pros say etiquette necessitates returning gifts. “Reach out to the store or the company that your registry is through to find out what their policy is,” Bauleke said. “Ideally, what you want to be able to do is return your gifts and then have them credit back the purchaser.”

Other experts disagree about the necessity of returning a present. “I don’t think they expect you to give it back, especially when they hear that the relationship dissolved,” Kolanović-Šolaja said. “Donate the things, or, you know, go in the backyard and break ‘em.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Perri Ormont Blumberg

Illustration by: Tatjana Prenzel

©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES