We booked our wedding back in June of 2019, with a wedding date of 6/6/2020. Due to the pandemic, we had to work with the venue to postpone. With my fiancé being a firefighter, we couldn't get married in the summer/fall so we had to look at dates of 2021. On 5/4/20 we decided on May 1, 2021 and our coordinator (works at the venue) went to work right away getting the new date set up (reached out to almost all of our vendors for us.) Well today (6/24) she just called me saying that the owner of the venue booked a wedding on our date and now WE have to choose a new date. She said that because I didn't sign a revision contract it wasn't in her system- I immediately said I never received a revision and she admitted/agreed that she had researched that and the system never sent one out to us. But they're still going to go with the couple with a signed contract...I was told that they want to help us with what they can for example: if we have to book a new DJ they'd help with the deposit....
I called my fiancé and we're both on the same page of almost wanting to give up/cancel big wedding and elope. Our venue had stated in the beginning of the coronavirus that they wouldn't be issuing refunds for cancelled weddings. The venue alone has $16,000 of our money and all of our vendors have been paid in full for months. And obviously we already sent out change the dates ($300+)
I guess I am writing this to get opinions on what we should do. Do we fight this? Do we ask for any sort of refund so we can move on with our lives? The coordinator also admitted that our date was on her spreadsheet but the owner didn't look at it before booking the wedding (the coordinator books pretty much all of the weddings, owner doesn't really deal with booking/behind the scene stuff) so I don't know why that even happened. I completely understand the stress the wedding industry is feeling right now, I am trying not to be mad but this is heartbreaking.
I also want to add that we had planned to elope on our original date but fiancé ended up having to work due to station sending out an engine to so cal for a fire. So absolutely nothing has been going our way 
these are such hard times
