Coronavirus and weddings: Can you get your money back if you signed a contract?

If caterers /event halls/ floral, etc… have to pay all of there down payments back they will go bankrupt. Both the vendors and brides need to compromise on dates, swapping dates or even honoring the down payment if they choose to move the date to the following year.
Most caterers (or at least my catering service) do a lot of services for brides during the off-season before their wedding. Tastings/group tastings, both of them even, caterers offer what are free services but we spend $60,000 a year on tastings alone. My wife talks to brides from sun up to sun down, holding their hands as best she can through emails and 2 hour phone conversation followed by 3 or 4 more “shorter calls”. We invest a lot of money in our office who work as many hours during the off-season as they do during the wedding season. 6 employees that I have to pay year round.
We have had some brides change their date 3 times.
We had to call them multiple extra times to mention “Covid changes” to their service.
No more family style services which if our most sought after service (too many touch points). We created and spent money on plexiglass shields for our modified buffet. We have people walk down the plexiglass side as one of our workers walks down the plate handing it through the plexiglass at the end. Sounds like cafeteria style but instead of 5 employees passing the plate to each other we have a single individual do it for that one person with 3 other employees getting the next 3 guests. 1 touch point per plate by my employees for each guest. While Wearing face masks/ gloves and sometimes face shields to keep them safe even though they rarely wear any masks themselves which endangers our employees. We are an off premise caterer dealing with multiple event halls who do not want to govern the brides and let them do as they please. With 1 hall as an exception. We average 1 wedding per week since the middle of June. That’s better than the previous 3 months when we were completely shut down. We are used to doing 9 to 16 weddings per week. Almost all full service events.
I’m writing this out for brides to see and consider. We WANT your day to happen! It just must happen differently than how you wanted it to. We are sorry for that but work with us because we do not want you to lose money. We want to do the service you put down a deposit for. Keep in mind that we ask for a deposit to hold the event to not only hold the date so we do not lose money for turning down other couples who want that date but also to pay for the tastings which even though are free do cost money to have between the food cost, chef/cook hours and office staff. Thousands of emails during the off-season have to be read and answered, usually having meetings between my workers to get all of the info correct and coordinated throughout the building. Warehouse team/waitstaff scheduler/ cooks/ the people doing the ordering. Event staff/ etc…etc…
Those deposits are long gone during the off-season paying for all of these services we provide for you before the month of your wedding even gets here

This is not McDonalds where you just order the food and get it a moment later.
THIS IS YOUR WEDDING,
And we for one want it to be memorable/enjoyable to the best of our abilities under the ever changing circumstances.
P.S. For your caterers safety please get your Uncle Joe to wear a mask 😷
…lie to him and tell him he looks sooo masculine in one. Or tell cousin Jimmy you wish to introduce him to your friend at the wedding but she only digs guys in masks.
Wherever it takes!

Send the bill to bill gates lmao

All contracts will include a pandemic exclusion after this ordeal