I told myself that when I started this blog, I was going to be open and transparent with it. Although I try to be as genuine as I can, Instagram and social media often look like a highlight reel. I always try to look for the positive in every situation, but if I’m being totally honest the last few weeks have been tough.
When we originally scheduled our wedding date for May 22, I knew I was going to have to work ahead and have a lot of things planned out way in advance because the beginning of May is the busiest time of year with my job. Our legislative session was set to end on May 15th which would have left one week to tie up loose ends before tying the knot. So, we got to work early and made a ton of the big decisions in the first few months after we got engaged. Everything was ahead of schedule and then the unexpected happened.
Like most girls, I’ve envisioned my perfect wedding day since I was young and never in a million years would I have guessed a worldwide pandemic would hit in the middle of it. The experience of being a bride is about so much more than the big day. Brides-to-be also look forward to bridal showers, appointments with vendors, bachelorette trips, and so much more. Unfortunately because of the pandemic, I’ve had to cancel or postpone a lot of those unique moments. I’m hoping that I’ll still be able to have my bridal shower with my side of the family and my bachelorette weekend, we just might have to be a little non-traditional and plan those events for after the wedding.
The hardest part about all of this has just been the uncertainty. No one really knew if things would be better by the end of May, so it’s been challenging to make plans. We didn’t want to go through the time-consuming process of rescheduling everything now, if by the time our wedding date came around everything was back to normal. Our venue reached out to us and recommended that we schedule a back-up date with them for later in the year just in case. One thing that has made this process so amazing was how flexible all of our vendors have been in working with us. We ultimately decided it was unlikely we’d be able to have all 200+ of our friends and family together in May for our wedding ceremony and reception. What we’ve decided to do instead is have a small ceremony with just our families and bridal party on our original date and plan our reception with all of our guests for the back-up date we scheduled in July.
While we are disappointed that we will not have all of our friends and family present for our big day, we are excited that we will still be able to celebrate the occasion with them a few months later. Our wedding day will look much different than I had imagined it when I was a kid, but all that matters at the end of the day is being able to marry the man I love.
If you’ve been trying to navigate the wedding planning process with all the uncertainty, I’d love to hear from you. Feel free to leave a comment down below with what aspects you’ve had to be flexible on. We still have some small things to figure out, so I’d love to hear your ideas!