Vow Muse sat down (virtually) with a few couples to hear how COVID-19 affected their wedding plans. Honestly, weddings can be challenging to plan during the best of times, so we were a little worried we’d hear horror stories around postponing or canceling the big day. Instead, vendors were surprisingly accommodating, and couples found the silver-lining to focus on what really matters… their love.
Meet our couples:
Richard and Chad were planning their wedding on June 20, 2020 at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum (VM note: check it out… it’s the biggest children’s museum in the world and a gorgeous event space!) with invitations sent to over 200 people. They had the menu dialed in and for the most part all their vendors were fully paid.
Amy and Jamey had planned a true community event. Their June 6, 2020 wedding was going to be held in their front yard, with a 250-300 person block party reception complete with taco truck, Arepa stand, and a popcorn machine. A friend had grown their flowers and everyone pitched in to create yard games and mini-golf holes in each of their neighbors’ yards.
Vow Muse: Tell us a little bit about your wedding! What were you most looking forward to?
Richard & Chad: We were really excited to share our day with friends and family. We had already had some last minute switches with our vendors but everyone had been working with us so we were really excited for all that we had planned. A lot of people were going to be coming in from out of town so it would have been great to see everyone.
Amy & Jamey: Our wedding celebration included events all day that folks could pop in on. It was supposed to start with a morning paddle-board session at our local surf break and ended with a food truck feast post ceremony. I was looking forward to the 30 flower children that consisted of all of our friends' kids — some are just learning how to walk! I was also really looking forward to the All Man Choir who would be singing "That's Amore" as the kids and I paraded down the aisle.
VM: How did the pandemic change the timing of your wedding—or not?
Richard & Chad from Indianapolis, IN (pictured in Cancun, Mexico)
R & C: We rescheduled to June 2021. In March, the museum advised us to postpone to later in the year, but not all our vendors were free. So we kicked it to next year! April 20th was our official RSVP date, so we sent texts and emails to anyone who had already RSVPed and then worked on letting everyone who had been invited know.
A & J: Currently, we’ve postponed indefinitely, rather than rescheduled. We decided we shouldn't make any plans until we know what the heck is actually going on with COVID-19. We made the final decision to officially postpone the wedding on April 1. That was also the RSVP by date… no joke! We realized we really wanted our immediate family to be by our side when we made the big commitment.
VM: What's been the most challenging part about postponing your wedding?
R & C: Mostly just the time involved in coordinating the reschedule. But 9 of our 10 vendors immediately said “yes, no problem, we can reschedule!” So that made things much easier. We only had one vendor that was a little stubborn initially. But after a few conversations even they came around. Almost all of our vendors are local, so maybe that helped with everyone’s willingness to work with us.
A & J: Because our venue is our front yard, it was pretty easy to cancel. Logistically the hardest part for us has been getting in contact with all of our guests. We were pretty loose with our invitation process, often times just sending our wedding website via text message. We’re both bartenders, so we included tons of bar regulars from past and present as well as coworkers, bosses, kitchen staff. We invited EVERYONE. So we are expecting that some of our hard to reach friends might still show up on our original wedding date.
All of our vendors have been really chill. We were doing a potluck for hors d'oeuvres as well as dessert. Along with the food, we had some rented tables and chairs and a few porta-potties. Everyone’s been totally understanding and just holding any deposit for when we can reschedule.
VM: Are you making any changes to your postponed wedding?
R & C: Nope, we pretty much just moved everything to a year later. So from that point of view it hasn’t been too hard. The only thing that’s going to be potentially different is that by next year we’ll be moved into our new house (VM note: yep, that’s right they were buying a house and planning a wedding at the same time and still love each other! #couplegoals) which means we’ll be able to have our rehearsal dinner at our house. So that will be an added bonus that comes with postponing. Other than that, we hired a day-of wedding coordinator in January so now we can loop her in and utilize her more for next year.
A & J: We have no idea what our postponed wedding will be like. If we could keep it exactly the same we would!! We are not sure if we will be allowed to gather in that large of a group for a very long time.
VM: How has it been emotionally? How have you and your partner supported each other during this time?
Jamey & Amy from Santa Cruz, CA
A & J: Emotionally, I cried a deep cry once at dinner. For about a good half hour. I cried for all the things that were planned that we were going to miss on that day. We were also super sad about all the international friends and family who were coming, some who I have not met in person yet. Jamey is ready to wear a ring. But honestly, besides that, I was kind of relieved. Planning a wedding, no matter how chill, is REALLY STRESSFUL!
Now, we feel like we are on a pre-honeymoon. We are living in a dream land. This time has become really precious to us both. Being older, we don't feel rushed to fit into a baby making timeline or career thing. So we decided to take this time and try even harder to cultivate more love and respect for us both. To choose to water our seeds of wisdom instead of the seeds of pain or self doubt. As long as we are still living and breathing, each day becomes more meaningful. When we finally say "I DO" there will be a lot more power behind the words.
VM: How have friends and family responded?
R & C: Everyone has been really supportive and understanding. Chad’s mom is a retired teacher and she’s been dying to help us with everything. But we’ve been doing almost everything ourselves though, it’s just easier because we’ve been planning it for 8 months so we know the details of it so well.
A & J: Our friends and family have been very supportive. We had a super radical joint bachelor(ette) campout party in February with 150 of our closest friends in Big Sur. So our friends feel like at least they got to do that. Our families are sad but also relieved. It is a scary time for older folks. Our moms really want us to get married like PRONTO. My (Amy’s) father passed away last year. With all this uncertainty around us I think there is an unspoken fear that our Moms may not live to see our wedding day. We are both the first of our immediate families to get married. The youngest sibling being 37 and the oldest being 46. So our families are READY for a wedding.
VM: Are you planning on doing anything to celebrate on the day you were supposed to get married?
R & C: Chad’s mom was organizing the wedding shower for us, so might do that (virtually or otherwise, depending on guidelines at the time).
A & J: We are definitely going to do something cool on our original wedding date. Probably paddle out into the ocean and then play yard games. Greet the few humans who don't take no for an answer and show up to party even when we told them not to.
VM: Anything else you'd like to share about going through this experience?
A & J: I’ve catered over 250 weddings, have recently been ordained and have married two couples in the past few months. After all those years working in the wedding industry I became pretty disgruntled about the whole thing. I’ve learned and experienced that oftentimes more attention is focused on the wedding than the actual marriage. I hope that this time allows for couples to get deep with one another. I personally am super grateful for this extra engagement time. It's a special gift — that if used right — can empower relationships to be stronger and more aware of the blessing marriage is.
—
Stay tuned for part two: the story of the couple who postponed, canceled and then… well you’ll just have to read to find out!
—
If you have a little more time on your hands to prep for your wedding, check out some of the DIY tools Vow Muse has to offer!
