Weddings in the Time of COVID-19

I’m Kelleen, the resident wordsmith for Tapestry Event Co. I am also a Tapestry client. Kate, Ms. Tapestry herself, is going to be officiating my wedding in June of 2020. Or, at least, that has been the plan. With the threat of the virus hovering over us, our guests, and our togetherness, the idea of gathering together has grown more and more uncomfortable. Needless to say, it’s heartbreaking. Here is how we are navigating these times, creating new celebrations, and mourning together.

It’s early March, and we Pacific Northwesterners are starting to realize that the virus we have been seeing on the news is coming to us. We have no way to stop it with the way our world currently works. This worries my fiancé, Max, and me, but we are sure that things will be fine by June. Slowly, governments around the world make the hefty decision to put a pause on society to keep the virus at bay. We are about a week and a half into March now, and every time someone I love says, “And we don’t know when it will ever end!” they glance at me and add, “Oh, I am sure it will be fine by June.”

While I appreciate their optimism, I read the news. I educate myself. I understand that the only way to flatten the curve of COVID-19 is to stay away from others. And that’s the opposite of what a wedding is about. The stress of the situation has made me put most wedding planning on hold (rental companies are not replying to emails because most of their employees are not in the office, any vendors I try to book now are willing to put a hold on the date but don’t want to sign contracts yet, and I am emotionally exhausted). My own DIY crafts and decorating plans with friends are cancelled because we can’t visit my mom who has all the supplies. I barely notice, though, because I am avoiding even thinking about the wedding. I put my energy into work and family so that I don’t have to think about it.

Now we're in Mid-March, and I realize my fiancé and I need to start making tough decisions. Max and I have been together for six years this May. We started dating right before we graduated from high school, spent four years doing long-distance, and have now lived together for two years. We both know what we want (i.e. to be married) and are excited to make it happen. We got engaged in October and decided to get married in June. Thinking about waiting much longer is heartbreaking. The word “postponed” feels like a punch to the gut. We want to marry each other! A lot of people might ask what the rush is, but honestly there is none. We simply want to call each other husband and wife. Whatever decision we make would have to include still getting married, but we know that if our family can’t come, it wouldn’t be the same.

One night I was coming home from work, and I called my dad to check in. The wedding inevitably came up. He said not to worry about him or what anyone else thinks because the most important thing is that Max and I get married and start this new chapter of our lives. I began crying because I needed to hear that validation: even if we couldn’t do it with our friends and family present, it was okay that we still wanted to get married on our day.

With this new sense of permission, I felt comfortable to have a conversation with Max about our priorities and what they day might look like without our loved ones there. Plan B became an intimate wedding with the maximum number of people the government allows together, prioritizing immediate family and then the wedding party. We also created a Plan C, to elope, in case we aren’t allowed to congregate at all. In both plans, we are postponing the reception to 2021, turning it into a one-year anniversary party. Each plan intentionally holds what we want at the end of the day. We used some of Kate’s guides on envisioning the future, which grounded us into our priorities and allowed us to take action.

Towards the end of March we connected with our officiant (Kate) and our coordinator to touch base. We had a plan and would make a final decision by the end of April. We still hold hope, if very loosely. We announced our plan to our guests, making sure that they knew that our priorities were their safety and our marriage. Both of these plans holds them sacred.

Meanwhile, I have not been able to think deeply about the possibility of the wedding not happening the way I planned without feeling intense loss. I moved quickly from “Everything will be fine” to “Here is plan A, B, and C… everything will still be fine” without acknowledging that this sucks and is not what we want. With the different tragedies occurring around the world, not having my wedding feels small and unimportant compared to the loss of a family member, job, or home. And while this is true, a wedding is a beacon of hope, a celebration of life and love. Having to cancel or move life-affirming gatherings is depressing for everyone involved. No one wants joy to be postponed.

Photos courtesy of Stella Sangster.

I am still struggling to process all of my feelings around the wedding because I can’t even process my feelings around COVID-19. A large part of me doesn’t want to think about it. Perhaps, if I ignore it, then the next thing will happen, the world will force me to commit to a new plan, and I will never have to think about the loss that I feel of not having my wedding go the way I wanted. I’ll ignore things like cancelling the bridal shower and bachelor and bachelorette parties, and we will move on with our lives. We can’t have them after we get married? Right? Wrong.

Over the last week I spent an entire session talking to my therapist about processing my grief. She gave me the best tools anyone has given me so far to help me put energy towards the future. She said that I totally have the right to be sad. This sucks. There are no norms in place to tell us how to postpone a wedding because of a pandemic. We have to make the hard decisions. But, how cool would it be to have a reception and renew our vows reflecting on a whole year of marriage? How much more powerful is it to make second vows based on the reality of what our marriage is rather than our projection of what we think it can be? After mourning all the traditions and parties that create anticipation for the wedding, she recommended turning them into something that can be celebrated at the time of our lives we are rescheduling them to rather than replicating what they would have been. Instead of a bachelorette party, have a “I’m Married Also F*ck COVID!” party (her words, not mine). I have the working title “Full On Wifey/Corona Sux” going. Have a couples shower with things you actually do need in your new house instead of what you imagine you’ll need. There are so many ways to get creative and transform celebrations so that we aren’t just losing something but gaining something as well.

And even though I can do all this, put everything on pause, hold and breathe, get married and celebrate later — it doesn’t make up for the loss I feel for not being able to celebrate this tradition with the immediacy we wanted. I reiterate that it sucks. Max and I don’t want to get married without our family, but our desire not to wait to get married overpowers all our other intentions. In this time of uncertainty, logistical factors like insurance and marital rights are important for us to be able to rely on. This choice is intentional, but it doesn’t mean that we don’t get to be sad that we can’t have both as was intended.

I share all this so that other couples understand that all the uncomfortable feelings and denial are normal. I got my dress fitted a couple weeks ago, and the tailor was confident everything would be dandy by June. She’s not an expert, but it just goes to show that we don’t really know what will happen. We don’t know how the world is going to look in a few months. She chooses to be optimistic. I am choosing to be cautiously pessimistic. I don’t think our older friends and family are going to feel comfortable being around large groups of people, even three months from now. Whatever anxiety you have is valid. You have probably made a big investment into this day, emotionally, financially, and thinking about having to pull out of that or adapt around a virus takes a lot of mental labor.

If you are in this situation, please tell us your stories on how you are adapting and what creative ideas you are embracing. Even if you aren’t sure what you are going to do, I invite you to reach out with how you are doing through the button below. Let us know if we can share your stories with our community. There are a couple summer 2020 brides working for Tapestry Event Co. who understand how you feel and are here to support you. Just like in every other Tapestry situation, no solution is one size fits all. I am sending my love out to all the couples who are having to make tough decisions between being with their loved ones and feeling safe. We will get through this together.

— Kelleen, Tapestry Content Manager