Planning Around a Pandemic

I got engaged in December 2019. The engagement was technically was a surprise, but my fiancé and I had already picked out my engagement ring over the summer, and booked our wedding venue in the fall. You see, I’m a planner.

By February, we had finished booking all of our main vendors: photographer, videographer, photo booth, florist, catering, and wedding coordinator. We assembled our bridesmaids and groomsmen, compiled our guest list, created our wedding website. We were simply cruising and sitting pretty.

Then, of course, COVID-19 happened and planning came to a halt.

At first, we were hopeful. While our friends were sending out “Change the Dates” for their spring and summer weddings, we sent out our Save the Dates in March. I mean, there’s no way we’d still be quarantining in October, right?

Well, it’s somehow still too early to tell if we were right or wrong. But by late May, we decided that rather than waiting any longer to see what would happen or keeping our guests on their toes, we would bite the bullet and cancel the wedding we had planned so diligently over the previous few months — and instead, opt for an intimate immediate-family-only ceremony in August.

Now, I never grew up having a dream wedding. I never knew what type of dress I wanted to wear, what style of decor I wanted to have, or anything like that. What I did know, though, was that my wedding was going to have an open bar and a killer DJ (who would play the kind of music that I danced to at every high school Homecoming). I honestly couldn’t care less about the food, the table settings, or the flowers. Dancing and letting loose with friends — all because we’re so happy for the newlyweds — is what I look forward to about weddings the most.

But since getting down and dirty on a dance floor with 100+ people does not seem like a reality we’ll be able to experience any time soon (even if we somehow get this virus under control in the next three months) it was actually quite easy for me to let go of that part of my “dream” wedding. And when that part was out of the picture, we were more than happy (and dare I say, relieved?) to cut down our wedding ceremony to the basics.

So now, my wedding is in a month, and I feel the same way I used to feel when I would step onto the block during a swim meet (random, I know, but I used to swim competitively): full of energy trying to escape my body, nervous almost to the point of throwing up, yet above all, calm and ready for the race ahead of me. The difference is that I was a sprint swimmer and marriage is more of a marathon — but luckily, I’ve also run two marathons in my day. ;)

Jokes aside, I don’t want to romanticize marriage, because I know it’s not just about happiness and love. It’s about two individuals coming together, embracing each other’s strengths and differences, and choosing each other every day, even through the most difficult of times. I know that we have a lot to learn, and probably a lot of pain ahead of us. But that’s the real beauty of marriage, because without trials or pain, there is no joy or beauty.