The day my fiance proposed to me was genuinely the happiest day of my life, but it will forever be told through the lens of a global pandemic.
You see, we had been shopping for an engagement ring seriously since January 2020, after I told him in no uncertain terms over New Years it was a fact we would be married someday. The setting I chose, a platinum vintage cathedral setting, had to have a ruby set in the center – and the jeweler for the locally-owned shop was trapped in Florida. Why?
He had been at a golf tournament when the pandemic starting closing borders. Finding a flight home, he said, was difficult.
So we waited. And waited. The ring, supposed to be ready on a Wednesday, was pushed to Friday. Then Monday. By that next Tuesday, my then-boyfriend had called the ring shop twice already that week, and I had lost hope.
He let me rant all throughout dinner that night in March about finding another ring, never getting this ring, and feeling hopeless, before he dropped down on one knee in our living room after we did the dishes together and asked me to spend the rest of my life with him.
Seriously, I can’t stop smiling, even just thinking about that moment. But, he apologized after the fact. “The world is basically closed,” he told me. “I couldn’t exactly take you somewhere fun to propose.”
It was perfect for us, and our relationship – private, homey, and loving. But I had no idea, that cold day in March, that ring delays would just be the start of our pandemic issues.
Finding a venue during a pandemic
At the time, I was very annoyed at my future mother-in-law. She wanted to book a venue for our wedding immediately, and we went to walk through a venue by a lake just an hour after I gave my final approval of the final ring.
The jeweler had gotten the ruby in and wanted our okay before setting it into the band, early March. I gave my yes, and then we drove straight to the venue.
So, we booked the venue she wanted, before we were even technically engaged. (Even though my fiance says he considers our true engagement date to be leap day, the day we found the setting and I made the decision to ask the jeweler to source a ruby for it. I asked him to marry him over pho after the fact. It was cold and almost-snowing out, and he had just read me an article about the tradition of women proposing on leap day.)
I liked the venue a lot, and it was close to both our families, as well as a hotel that we could shuttle guests to and from.
What started as annoyance at finding a venue so early transformed into intense appreciation when I realized just how hard planning a wedding during a pandemic was.
Most weddings this summer were postponed, and that means all weekends – and lots of weekdays – in 2021 are basically booked already. Not just with weddings that were planned ahead, like ours, but with weddings that needed a date change.
Brides are scrambling to find anywhere that has a date even close to what they dreamed. Micro-weddings happening now through the end of the year are wildly popular, because… well, you can’t find a venue at a date you want later, so might as well get your COVID-bubble together and tie the knot.
I couldn’t even begin to count the number of backyard weddings I’ve seen since I started seriously planning our wedding. When venues are closed, you need to make due.
Trying on dresses during a pandemic
I tried to make my first appointment to find a wedding dress in October, thinking the worst of the pandemic – and scheduling – had passed. My FMIL, in true pushy fashion, wanted me to shop as soon as we got engaged… but honestly, no bridal stores were open at the time. I would have had to cross state lines to find a store that would even consider letting me try them on, and even then, appointment times were hard to find. Could I even justify putting a retail worker’s life at risk so I could try on a wedding gown?
My first stop was at a large local department store with four floors. I had to schedule my appointment nearly three weeks in advance, and to confirm, I got this email:
Well, that’s… kind of a bummer. For my first appointment, I wanted to try on a huge variety of dresses, of different shapes and sizes. I had no idea what dress type would look good on my body, and while I had some contenders on my extensive Pinterest board, I was hoping for more variety.
I genuinely almost canceled the appointment entirely, but my fiance encouraged me to stick with it – it’s not a waste if I try on a few dresses, he says, and get a good idea. So, I went.
Let me tell you, the feeling of looking at yourself in the first wedding dress you’ve ever tried on… wearing a grey floral mask your best friend from Philadelphia sent you at the start of the pandemic… it’s almost a surreal experience.
There was only one other woman trying on dresses on the fourth floor with me, a girl with what looked like her sister and mother with her. She was trying on dresses, looking miserable, four dressing rooms down, and was walked to a separate room completely to show her family.
My fiance was the only one to accompany me. Most brides-to-be bring their mothers, their mother-in-laws, and their bridal party, but there was a limited amount of space.
In addition, due to the pandemic, my mother couldn’t come. After a nasty fall and a series of health concerns, she lives in an assisted care facility. Because of lockdowns in our state, and the fact that she is extremely high risk, I have seen her only a handful of times since the end of February. Let’s be clear – if my mother contracts COVID-19, she will probably not make it.
It didn’t seem fair to invite my future mother-in-law without being able to invite my actual mother, so neither came. But without a bridal party, that meant I was going by myself. Luckily, my fiance had no hesitation and came with me, weighing in on dresses and reassuring me it wasn’t ‘spoiling’ anything to see me in a wedding dress before the Big Day.
The store was eerie-empty at moments, but my attendant was polite and pleasant. Martha zipping me up into expensive gowns was the closest physically I had been to a stranger in months.
No, this isn’t the dress. And if you can’t tell, it’s a little large – at least a size too big, though Martha came in after the photo was taken and pinned me right up.
In fact, I didn’t find the dress while I was there. No surprise, because honestly… 4 dresses just aren’t enough, especially for the first trip.
I have two more appointments in the coming weeks to try and find a gown I like, and all have similar requirements:
Again, I’ve got contenders, but I’m not convinced that these socially distanced, highly appointments are going to help me find what I truly love. Not that I’m mad – I understand it’s a pandemic! But this wasn’t the way I always dreamed of trying on dresses to be.
Pandemic chic
If you go to Etsy and search wedding mask, you’re to get more than 46,000 results… which is nuts. But this is the world we live in – pandemic chic is a thing.
From monogrammed masks for yourself, custom masks for your bridal party, or one-time-use masks with your last name and wedding date for all your guests, you truly can have it all, and safely.
If you’re making major alterations to your wedding gown, consider asking your seamstress to save the extra fabric and make a custom mask to match your dress. This is my plan, should I get the chance – though hopefully there will be a vaccine before the wedding… and the dress won’t need such major changes.
Tiny bottles of hand sanitizer with your name and wedding date are also very in.
All the vendors you don’t think about… during a pandemic
How do you taste cakes in a private room during a pandemic?
How about meeting with a photographer in their studio, to go over photographs and styles?
What about the florist? The caterer? A wedding coordinator?
Please don’t misunderstand – life does go on. I met my florist, who is doing 90% of our decorations as well, in her little shop downtown. We sat upstairs around a table, all wearing masks, and I refused the offer of food and drink because… well, it’s a pandemic. We pushed pictures and notes back and forth to compare without ever touching each other, and no shaking of hands was exchanged.
Our photographer, a charmingly awkward man with 4 children (one just two weeks old!) drove 45 minutes from his home to meet with us because his studio wasn’t available. We sat with masks across a large table while my fiance idly flipped through examples of his work, and we discussed timelines for the wedding, hours, and prices. He offered us a bottle of hand sanitizer after we signed the contract, explaining since we had touched a pen he had touched, he wanted us to feel safe.
A little bakery around the corner is probably going to make our wedding cake since I have approximately 800 dietary restrictions. He’s going to make us special batches of cupcakes to taste, in order to determine what type we want. We’ll take them home, taste them, and let him know – no eating unmasked around strangers here.
Our caterer is luckily attached to our venue, so no real concerns there. We’re going to select from pre-planned menu options, with some sauce changes so I can actually eat something, and the open bar should be fine. If there’s still a pandemic, the signature cocktail on the bar top will be nixed. (We’re going white sangria, dyed purple if anyone is curious)
If you’ve never planned a wedding, there are a thousand little things that you don’t know you have to do. We can’t even look for vintage centerpieces right now, because most little consignment shops are closed, operating on appointment only, or have such short hours that anyone working an actual 9-5 job can’t go inside.
The guest list… what about the guest list?!
I discovered very early on that it is very hard to make a guest list for a wedding without going overboard. My FMIL has so many people important to her that she wants to invite. My own mother almost insisted her favorite pastor officiate the wedding, despite the fact we already had that part covered – then insisted he be invited anyway, just in case. Just in case what?!
Of course my mother’s best friend has to be invited, plus her favorite activity aide from her last facility. That’s all well and good, but the pandemic puts a certain… constraint, on a guest list.
At this point in time, we simply do not know where the world will be. Can we have 200 people at our wedding? Maybe! But it’s too soon to know. Maybe we need to cut the guest list down to 50.
Most of my friends, and my fiance’s friends, don’t live near us. His best friend is in Japan. His college roommate is two states away. All my closest friends live 400 miles away.
Can we simply ask these people to put their health at risk, and the health of those around them, to witness us tie the knot? What is our moral obligation here? How do we draw the line between the wedding we really want, surrounded by the people we love the most, and risking lives? Sure, at the end of the day that is their decision and responsibility… but how can I ask them to do this, and would I be able to live with myself if someone got sick traveling to my wedding?
If someone died?
COVID-clauses are real
One very impressive way that venues have been dealing with this is adding what are called COVID Clauses to their paperwork and legalities. It varies on the venue, but this often states that they cannot control the pandemic – if your wedding is canceled due to it, welp, sorry.
Some offer a partial or full refund. Most allow you to change your date to one not already booked in the future, within reason.
What COVID clauses don’t protect you from? Going out of business.
Most vendors that you deal with for a wedding only do weddings or events. Unless you’re getting your catering from your favorite restaurant (which, for smaller weddings, is a really excellent idea to save money and get your favorite dinner), your caterer probably hasn’t worked much in 2020. For a large business with plenty of savings, this is totally fine. But for a smaller, mom-and-pop owned business?
This could be fatal.
So many small businesses are going out of business, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Lockdowns lost jobs, and a serious dip in the economy means that these businesses are closing at an alarming rate. And it’s scary, to give a deposit to a photographer, florist, or bakery not knowing if they’ll be around in a year.
If these businesses close, there’s a good chance you’ll never get your deposit back – and you will be scrambling to find another vendor in time. It’s terrifying, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
At the end of the day…
Look, I get it. Nearly 50 million people worldwide have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or the novel coronavirus. Over 234,000 have died in the United States alone. That’s staggering and heartbreaking – mothers, fathers, children, grandparents… gone from us, too soon, because of a virus.
It seems petty and childish to be upset about the difficulties of planning a wedding when put into that perspective. But I also think it’s important – and even necessary – to take time in our day to mourn the little things we have lost in 2020. Going out shopping, getting lunch, or dinner with friends, going to the doctor… it’s all so different from the way it was last year.
I think my sadness at a loss of traditional wedding planning is valid. Brides-to-be out there, reading this and feeling my pain: understand you’re allowed to be upset at what you’re missing even when people have it much, much worse. Sometimes self-care really is just sitting on the couch and crying because you have to go dress shopping alone, or your maid of honor can’t fly internationally so she can’t be at your wedding, or your date needs to be pushed back or even canceled.
Planning a wedding is hard in the best of times. During a global pandemic? Well, it’s truly a frustrating, nerve-wracking, and sometimes downright scary process.
