Before I get into this post, exciting announcement: there will not be a blog post up next week Monday as I'm getting married this weekend and going on a mini-moon! I will be back on the 24th with a '4 years since I started my gratitude diary: best bits of 2020' post as May 22nd is 4 years since I started it, and it has honestly changed my life.
For today though, here is what it has been like for me to be planning our wedding during the pandemic. The first thing to know about our wedding is that we got engaged in July of 2019, so we really didn't have a single clue what was coming for us, and how much it would affect us. In a post at the end of last year, I said that the wedding planning was pretty much complete, and that was true. At the time.
However, we were still in lockdown at the end of last year, and this led to us spending the first 8 weeks of 2021 wondering and waiting to find out how much we'd have to change. None of our vendors had answers for us because they didn't know either - I really do believe that the wedding industry was left to fend for itself during this whole thing, and my sympathy goes out to everyone working in the industry, and to the couples who have had to postpone and rearrange, many more of their plans than we did. Luckily for us, we had an inkling that our entire guest list would not be permitted to make it, and so we had two lists on my phone, one labelled 'if allowed 30', and 'if allowed 15'. I'm really glad we had already put a lot of thought into those lists months before we needed them, because it took some of the heartbreak out of it.
On February 22nd, we finally had the UK roadmap out of lockdown announced to us, and we saw that our wedding date fell under the '15 guest allowance', where had it been a mere two days later, we would've been able to have an extra 15. Now, we were originally planning on having 48 guests at our ceremony, and an extra 40 in the evening for our reception, so we had a very upsetting evening cancelling on around 75 loved ones, which was so hard but everyone was so lovely and understanding. As well at this, hotels don't open until two days after our wedding too so I thought I'd have to kiss my pretty 'getting ready' wedding morning photos goodbye, but luckily I did manage to find a gorgeous bnb for us to get ready in instead. I am still sad about the loss of the hotel though as our bridal party was going to stay over the night before so that we could have a casual drink with them the night before, but that's such a minor detail in the grand scheme of a wedding, so it's okay!
It was also really hard to find out that we aren't able to have a reception - and although we know it's the 'party' event of the day, and isn't what's important, we were really looking forward to our first dance. Due to this, we knew from the get-go that we wanted to have a sequel wedding - which is where you have an intimate ceremony only wedding this year, and then a large belated reception party with the entire original guest list next year. Due to not having a reception this year, we had to cancel our sparkler exit at the end of the night, but fingers crossed we're able to do this next year!
It was hard to accept all of these changes at first, because we went into this year with our wedding being one day, and now it's three - one for our ceremony, one for our reception, and as it turns out, one for our legal courthouse wedding as there was a mix up with our local council which meant we couldn't have our 'notice of intention to marry' appointment the required 30 days before our wedding day, so our ceremony won't actually legally marry us, but we do get legally married less than a month later so it's not so bad.
We are very thankful that our micro wedding is still going to be on the date that we chose 2 years ago though, as it is an important date to us, and we chose it because it was special to us - and it will be really lovely to see everyone next year to celebrate our one year anniversary in the best way possible. We've already booked a venue, and started planning the music and decor of the reception, so in a way, it's quite fun that the planning doesn't stop here.
I'm also really grateful that I will be able to wear my wedding dress more than once, (although this was also affected as I would have planned to take my dress in for my fitting around 3 months before the wedding, not 3 weeks, but by the day that this blog post goes up - it will have been tailored to me, hemmed and almost ready to collect), which is good news because I absolutely love it. I'm also very glad that we did end up with a humanist celebrant-led ceremony in the end, as it turns out that our former registrar has banned confetti, music and speeches - all of which we absolutely want in our wedding, and we're now allowed to keep as our wedding isn't legal so we can override all of those restrictions - it does make you wonder why registrars cost so much to ruin your wedding, though. Anyway, the universe knew what it was doing with that one. We also absolutely love our celebrant and how much she has personalised our ceremony to us, and to our relationship, so it was 100% worth it.
More changes include the fact that our wedding will now be live-streamed, which we knew that we wanted as there was such a large number of people that we wanted there, that couldn't be there. I also had a virtual bridal shower. (you can read about my photoshoot for that here) due to the pandemic, which means that all of my lovely bridesmaids will meet on the day, but they're all so wonderful that they're already friends independently of being my bridesmaids anyway which honestly warms my heart so much, and I have no doubt they'll have a lovely time. Stephen's best man and groomsmen are also planning for his stag to be post-wedding, alongside my bridesmaids planning my non-virtual hen do, so as I say, the excitement does not stop here.
We also had a florist booked, (without deposit yet), who then suddenly began ignoring us for a number of months and we had to end up reaching out to another one. No judgement here though - a lot of businesses really suffered during the pandemic, so we completely understand.
The pandemic also means that we have ordered all of our catering, and chosen our wedding cake design and flavours, but we have no idea how any of it will taste as we couldn't have the usually scheduled taste tests - saying that though, I have no doubt that everything will be absolutely delicious. The same goes for all of our wedding vendors generally - we've only ever met them over Zoom or Skype and won't get to meet them in person until our wedding day, which is so strange to say! Thank goodness for technology is all I have to say on that.
Going to end on honestly the most positive thing that happened here - when we went to look at our venue pre-covid, we loved both of the suites, but there was such a vast price difference between ours and the larger, that we went for the smaller one. Due to the smaller one not having an outdoor rain shelter, (and our guests can't remove their mask indoors, and therefore, must eat outside - and must have a rain shelter), we have been moved into the larger suite without having to pay any extra for it. I mean. I'm not sure if we'll feel a little lost in a room made for 200 guests, when we only have a mere 12. What an entrance I'll be able to make though, right?
With all of the above being changed, rearranged, and twisted into an entirely new shape - I still think that we've managed to plan a beautiful wedding. I personally have already cried twice just reading our celebrant's script for the ceremony, so it's absolutely going to be a really heartwarming day regardless of everything, and I'm looking forward to it!
See you in two weeks x
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