How Covid affected our wedding

In December, 2019, my partner of over 8 years asked me to marry him. After a difficult year personally, it helped to end the year on an unbelievable high, and I couldn’t wait to dive in to planning our wedding.

Three months later, the country went into Covid-19 lockdown.

Still, I was hopeful and excited. We organised FaceTime meetings with celebrants, we had our parents go to site viewings, and I was emailing with various vendors to book flowers, cake, and transportation. Not only were we planning a wedding in the middle of a pandemic, but we were also doing it from another state. And everything seemed to be going well.

After what felt like an eternity, lockdowns lifted, borders opened. I was able to fly interstate for cake tastings and to see our venues. In the back of our minds, though, was always that lingering fear - what happens if restrictions are put back in place and borders are shut? Do we postpone? Do we just cut down our guest list and have a smaller wedding? We decided that, until such a time that we are told we can’t hold our wedding, we keep going. We keep planning. As far as we were concerned, our wedding was going ahead.

Then, about four months before our wedding, the event coordinator at the hotel where we were holding our reception called me. They were extending their contract with the government and continuing as a Covid quarantine hotel. We would need to relocate. Thankfully, the event coordinator helped us find a new venue, and it was the venue I never knew I needed. It was a beautiful, rustic venue in a vineyard, and a completely different vibe to the corporate-type ballroom we had originally chosen.

We powered through with our planning, and even moved back to the city where our wedding was being held with three months to go. This made things a lot easier for us when it came to shopping for finishing touches, attending fittings, and meeting with our new event coordinator. Things were going well! And we sincerely thought we were going to be one of the lucky couples. With one week to go, and everything organised, we could finally relax and enjoy our wedding.

Then, with six days to go, a Covid outbreak was declared in our city. New restrictions were put into place. I watched the press conference with my manager at work, fiddling anxiously. But there were no new restrictions announced in regards to weddings, so as of that night, everything was going ahead.

The following day, we had our final meeting with our event coordinator at our reception venue. As we pulled up in the car park, my parter’s cousin messaged me, saying how sorry she was, and that she was watching the press conference. I asked her what was going on. What press conference?

She told me our city was going in to a 7 day lockdown.

With five days to go, this meant that we would have to postpone our wedding.

Naturally, I was upset. I still am. But the more I think about it, the more I’m trying to see this as a blessing in disguise. So, how has Covid been a good thing for our wedding?

The weather will be nicer. Our original date was in July. We picked it due to the significance to us, but it was going to be a winter wedding. This meant that we had to be conscious of the weather when it came to picking our venues and organising our bridal portraits. Our (tentative) new date is in December, so it’ll be summer. The days will be longer, and the weather will be warmer. We won’t have to worry as much about rain, and we won’t have to worry about keeping ourselves and our guests warm. This means we also have the option of having an outdoor ceremony.

We have the option of changing our ceremony. Our original ceremony location was in a different venue to our reception. One of the most common questions I was asked was why that was. My answer was that every wedding I’d ever been to held the ceremony and reception in different places. I figured that was normal, even though Pinterest research and wedding day outlines were telling me otherwise. I was even saying to my partner that, if I had the time again, I would have our ceremony and reception in the same location. At our meeting with our reception event coordinator, she gave us the option of holding our ceremony there as well, and gave us a price that meant we wouldn’t be spending any extra money, even if we lost our deposit from the original venue. The setting would be nicer, there are better photo opportunities, and it means less travel for us and our guests.

I also have more time to write my vows. Which is funny, because we weren’t originally going to write our own vows. We were originally going to pick bits and pieces from our celebrant’s samples and stitch them together, but somehow that evolved into writing them from scratch. I had written my vows, and I was prepared to read them to my soon-to-be husband, but I wasn’t 100% happy with them. In the days during our city’s lockdown, I re-wrote them. I’m happier with them now - they’re more me. More us.

So while we’ve now joined the club of countless couples who have had to postpone their wedding due to Covid restrictions or lockdowns, and while I am still upset about it, there has been some good come out of it. Our day will come, and it will be everything we’ve dreamed of.