How I am Wedding Planning During the Covid-19 Pandemic

I am engaged to be married. We got engaged in December of 2019 and decided that we did not want to have a long engagement, so immediately jumped into wedding planning. After Christmas we started looking at venues and set the date for August 22, 2020. I have my dress bought, the photography and DJ booked and was starting to plan other things like my shower, dress appointments for my bridesmaids, when suddenly this pandemic broke out.

I’ve probably mentioned in some other posts that because of this, everything has been put on hold. I can’t do the food tasting at the venue to decide what meals will be served. My bridesmaids and I can’t go dress shopping. My shower was supposed be at the end of May or beginning of June, but obviously that did not happen. I recently emailed the venue to see what news they had about when they might be opening.

Their response was that they believed that the government would not allow them to open and that I and one other couple were the only couples who had not yet decided to play it safe and push the wedding back to next summer.

You can imagine that while this isn’t entirely unexpected, it’s not what I wanted to hear. At all. We have been together six years, seven in December and we intend to get married regardless.

Wedding Planning-Having a New Plan

Brides are being told to have their cry and remember that their special day will happen. It’s just a matter of when. And while there are larger problems in the world than when my (or anyone’s) wedding will take place, this advice is…unhelpful. Imagine telling a child, “oh yes dear, you can have a puppy” and when the child asks, “when?” the reply is, “one day.” Because that’s what I feel like right now. So I have begun to think of Plans B and C, only when I sit down and think about them, they aren’t even really a plan.

Plan B: Postpone the wedding till Covid-19 blows over. Many couples have decided to move their wedding to 2021. But, we are being told that with this virus it could be two years before things return to normal. Not that I have any idea what normal might be in two years and that is exactly why I do not want to postpone my wedding. Will “normal” in two years look like gatherings of 20 people being allowed? 50 people? Will we have to stand two meters apart at these gatherings? Will face masks be mandatory in these larger groups? There are so many restrictions that may still be at play in a year or two down the road, so will my wedding be the wedding I was planning? I doubt it, just as if I get married in August my wedding will not be what I was planning back in January. So Plan B doesn’t seem like much of a plan at all. Plan B is hope, nothing else. At least, that is my opinion.

Plan C: have a petite wedding. Apparently this a new trend for those couples going ahead with their wedding plans. Have a smaller, more elegant wedding so that you still get that amazing WOW day, but with less people. As many as 20, but as little as four would be the numbers for a petite wedding. This isn’t a bad plan, but I honestly don’t know how this would work for us. I see several obstacles that make me fearful that this would not work for our family, and would therefore not work for us. So the Plans B and C that many others might be opting for just don’t seem right for us.

Do I Have a New Plan?

Our new plan is to have options. We have given ourselves three options that we think cover all the bases. None of them are the most fleshed out plans, but how can you really have a solid plan in times where everything is fluid because our understanding of the virus and how to flatten the curve is ever changing? So if nothing is craved in stone, well right now these plans are craved in mud. But these are our plans.

Option One: Everything opens and we go forward with our wedding as planned. I know you are probably cringing, she’s deluding herself etc. but Ontario is starting to open up slowly. Stores have opened, and so are physiothreapy clinics (and other paramedical practices) in the next week or two. So it’s a possibility that we may be able to go forward with our wedding as planned. I’m not holding my breath but, it could happen. As this pandemic has taught us, anything can happen.

Option Two: We will still be able to hold our wedding at the venue, but with restrictions. This is also a possibility. We may have to limit our guest list. In this event, I think I would like to invite all the guests I had planned on, but would alter the invitation somehow to let them know I would have loved to include them if not for restrictions. So they get an a note or card stating they are invited in spirit or something like that.

Option Three: A private wedding that would include only our families. If all restaurants are to remain closed, I think that we would do a private wedding with our immediate family and have a very classy, outdoors family dinner. It’s what I’m thinking of as a tres petite wedding. Again, I would send all the guests I wanted to invite some kind of card letting them know they were always meant to be part of our special day.

In Conclusion

One way or another, one day or another, my wedding is going to take place. That is all that really matters, and I know that together my hubby to be and I will sort out all the details, regardless of these insane circumstances and times and have a beautiful wedding. Weddings rarely go off without a hitch, my hitch is just a lot more complicated than most. So it might be time for this bride to worrying about the little details–place card holders, centre pieces and all those little touches that make a wedding romantic and beautiful.