COVID Wedding Planning 101
Last autumn, the great big world of the wedding planning industry brimmed with advice and inspiration. Among the thousands of articles, you could find suggestions for inclement weather, for navigating difficult family members, even for managing getting married with a cold, but nothing about pandemics. Shocking, right? Who would have thought people would be planning weddings in the middle of a public health crisis. Clearly none of us. By March the industry, and the world at large, realized this mistake. I started to notice the coronavirus themed advice columns appear. The term “Mini-mony” filled the subject lines of promotional emails week after week. Ads for ‘Re-Save Our Date’ cards clogged my social feeds. As a bride-to-be in the middle of COVID19, I browsed these new articles, looking for the same kind of clear cut advice that I could find back in the fall. Somehow, for the amount of pandemic themed wedding blogs that seemed to pop up overnight, I still struggled to find any useful information.
After almost 10 months of waiting, the big day is finally less than 2 weeks away, and I’m crossing more and more more actions off my to-do list. As our wedding nears, and I finish our Spotify playlist and pay the florist and paint the namecards, I’ve been thinking about what information would have been helpful over the last month. I browsed article after article but could only find advice about elopements, which was not helpful. I wanted to know how other brides had navigated a socially distant wedding reception and created an intimate experience when guests had to keep a 6 foot distance from each other. What other brides had done to make their day still special when state regulations slashed the number of guests by 75%? Of course that information didn’t exist when I started looking because no one had really planned such a wedding yet. Now, somehow, I am someone with personal experience on planing a pandemic wedding. Of course, there is no perfect universal blueprint for a COVID wedding — social distancing regulations differ from region to region and state to state, day to day and week to week. What worked for us won’t necessarily apply to anyone else. That said, I can boil our process down into a few key themes.
Know Your Priorities
While Austin and I benched our reception with all our family and friends at The Wild Center in the Adirondacks for 2021 (don’t worry, there will be a celebration with otters next summer!), we definitely weren’t going to wait a year to get married. As we re-planned our wedding, we identified our priorities for our day. Obviously priority number one was getting married on July 11th, 2020. After that came having our immediate families being present and celebrating our marriage in our church. Our parents and siblings mean the world to us, and to not have them present to witness our commitment to each other would be heartbreaking. Our church is significant because it was where we met, and fell in love. Even more important, for us celebrating our marriage is a sacred act that we are making to each other in the presence of God. To make that commitment in a holy space, consecrated by all the couples who have said those same vows before us, makes our covenant even more meaningful. (Side note, it’s a gorgeous church with Tiffany stained glass windows, so you really can’t beat that.) If we could have our immediate family celebrate with us in our church, the rest of the day would fall into place.
Follow the Regulations
Sometimes you have to find a little humor in the situation…
Once we knew our priorities, we had to match them up with State regulations. Shortly after we modified our plans for this summer, local churches began to open at limited capacity, though private group sizes were still limited to 10 people. We knew we could move ahead with planning, even if it was just for the immediate family. We started with modifying our plans around the social distancing requirements placed on churches and restaurants. Now, legal group sizes has expanded to fit our 20-some person guest list, but we still have to maintain social distancing guidelines. Sure, it’s going to be weird for everyone in the pews to be in masks, but it is what allows us to celebrate with our family together. We’re modifying other parts of the reception to fit the social distancing guidelines as well. Having a guestbook on display for our 20 guests to mingle around and sign at their leisure isn’t really a COVID friendly option, so we’re being flexible and creative: note cards and pens at each table that can be dropped in a box and we’ll compile them in a guestbook scrapbook following the event. Our reception will be individually plated for each table to both avoid spreading germs and to feel fancy. Hand sanitizer available, you better believe it!
Make it Special - and Different
COVID weddings are weird. They aren’t small intimate weddings, given that all interaction provides a risk of infection. We can’t properly mingle and hang out with our guests the way we would pre-COVID. Seeing as there’s no ignoring how different this day will feel, we focused on all the little ways we could make our day meaningful - whether that meant splurging a little on decorations or getting creative with activities. Borrowing or buying tea towers for each of the tables? Why not! Personalized Madlibs for each of the table? Perhaps so! We’re even tossing around the idea of Austin and Amelia trivia. If the weather is sunny after the reception, we’ll invite our guests to walk down to the park and get ice cream with us in our wedding finery, because why not!
Given the situation, with the lack of intimacy and juggling all the regulations, it would be easy to feel like the day isn’t a “real wedding.” But it is. We’re still finding ways to make it special with the people who love us most, even at 6 feet apart.
Take Advantage of the Situation
Like I said, celebrating a wedding during a pandemic is a really strange experience. Expanding on the idea of making our day special and different, we also took advantage of the strangeness of the situation. We invested time and energy into meaningful things that only make sense to do with a small gathering, like have our rehearsal dinner at our favorite restaurant in town, on the deck by the water. The situation has also allowed us to be more personal. Since the middle of May, I’ve spent hours painting watercolor invitations, favor cards, table numbers, and name-cards. Mom and I are making the cake. My brother is playing the music for our first dance. Each of these touches makes our day even more meaningful. Given the changes, we also have more flexibility to work with. We have time to do things like take photos in the coffeeshop where we had our first date or a photoshoot along our favorite rural road at sunset. Each of these additions makes our plans especially unique and memorable.
The Art of the Zoom
One of the most difficult parts of changing our plans was not being able to have my bridesmaids (aside from my maid of honor) present. These women are some of the most incredible friends I’ll ever have, and each of them had a hand in making me the woman I am today. Because of the pandemic, I couldn’t have them at a bridal shower and I can’t have them at the wedding — and it breaks my heart a little. So my maid of honor and I are finding ways to still involve these women, even at a distance. We’ll have a virtual shower on Zoom, and perhaps a brief Zoom on the morning of the wedding as I finish getting ready. Zoom also allows me to have a virtual shower with the women in Austin’s family — over the last year I’ve loved getting to know them, especially his cousins, and it’s another great sorrow that they can’t be present in July. But this allows us to involve them in the celebrations, even at a distance!
Finally, Be Flexible
Ultimately, when it comes to planning a COVID wedding, flexibility is key. In general flexibility is helpful, but I cannot emphasize enough how important it is today. The only thing that seems to change faster than the social distancing regulations is the virus itself, so be flexible. Afterall, it’s easier roll with the craziness if I focus on the whole reason this is happening: that I am marrying the love of my life, a man whose smile and curiosity and gentleness brings so much joy into my life. At the end of the day, we will drive off into the sunset, on the first night of the rest of our life. It doesn’t really get any better than that.
