Being a Covid Bride

It’s been almost one month since I married the love of my life in a beautiful backyard ceremony. While this day was by far the best day of my life, it was not what I envisioned. Like many others, my husband and I had our wedding plans uprooted when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Nobody expected this pandemic to last as long as it did, so when I got sent home for the work from home period in March, I didn’t think my wedding would be affected at all. But as the months went by, I started to doubt that my October wedding would happen. I would obsessively check the number of new COVID cases each day. And each day, my anxiety and stress got even worse as the cases only crept upward.

At the beginning of the summer, Sam and I started thinking of backup plans. We decided that we still wanted to get married this year. The issue was we still wanted to have a few friends and family involved. Figuring out what to do was hard because I kept wondering if trying to include friends was too selfish, and with how the COVID cases kept rising, I wasn’t even sure if it would be possible to get married at all.

Luckily, one afternoon as we discussed our wedding for the hundredth time and Sam was trying to console my crying for the hundredth time; we started thinking about family that we knew who had backyards big enough to host a wedding. That’s when we thought of Sam’s sister and brother-in-law, and we decided to ask them if they would be comfortable hosting our wedding in their yard. We are super blessed and thankful that they agreed, and we finally were able to get excited about our wedding day again. I felt a huge weight lift off my shoulder, and the stress I was carrying around for months started to disappear.

Upsides to Our Backyard Wedding

Even though our wedding wasn’t the event we initially envisioned we had a great time! We took precautions by asking everyone to get tested before coming and besides our results not getting back to us until the morning of (they were negative thankfully!!) , everything went smoothly. I may have been stressing over the weather that week but it ended up being a beautiful afternoon so hanging out outside was no problem. Yes, it sucked not having the whole ordeal but we were surrounded by our family and closest friends and it really made the day feel like it was for us whereas sometimes large weddings seems like it’s more about the guests. We got catering from CAVA and talked and had drinks with everyone after the ceremony. At the end of the night we even sat around my sister-in-laws bonfire pit.

We bought a nice professional camera a few weeks prior and one of Sam’s friends was kind enough to snap photos throughout the evening so we have so many great memories to look back on. We provided a zoom link for some of our family to watch the ceremony and have that saved so in the future we can look back on our pandemic wedding and laugh at how crazy a time 2020 was.

But one of the main things I loved about having the backyard wedding was that since we only had a small group we moved the date from Friday, October 23 to Saturday, October 24 and I love that date so much better. Sam and I got engaged on August 24 so it was nice to have our wedding day be the same number. Plus its a nice even date.

If I had one word for our wedding it’d be super chill and that’s how Sam and I are as a couple so I believe it fit us perfectly.

So Why Have a Second Wedding?

Some may ask why Sam and I would even have a second wedding since we decided to get married this year anyway. Well aside from the fact that we already a bunch of money that is refundable, we also always envisioned our wedding be a party with friends and family. While we were able to do a small version with some friends and family last month there were still many “typical” wedding things missing. We didn’t have a first dance, there was no cha-cha slide, the bridesmaids were not in the bridesmaids’ dresses and most of all many people we wanted to celebrate with were not there.

Even though we will already be married when we do it all again, I know the butterflies and wedding magic will still be there. I’ll get to wear the dress I fell in love with back in February. I’ll get to walk down the aisle to my loving husband again and tell him how much I love him and that I still do. I’ll get to feel the love of all our family and friends and dance the night a way with all of them. And selfishly I’l get the wedding I dreamed about since Sam got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. Just because we are already married doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get to do it the way we originally wanted.

I just hope COVID decides to chill out by October of next year. (**nervous laugh**)

Never could I have imagined I’d be not only living in a pandemic but also getting married during one. It has been a crazy time and I would not wish this on any bride ever but I’m glad we showed COVID it was not going to infringe on all our happiness this year. While this year has not been the best one of my life, I still got the best day of my life.