COVID-19: Our Unwelcome Wedding Guest

I’ve always told Justin, when talking about wedding planning, “just give me a pretty dress and I’m ready to marry you.” Now, only 15 weeks from the big day and the COVID-19 pandemic still wears on, that is becoming more of a reality.

Originally, we had planned a modest wedding on August 8, 2020 with about 80 guests and had most of the details ironed out. However, things are changing by the day. I’m definitely the roll with the punches type of person and was prepared for any problem to arise with the wedding. At least, that’s what I thought.

We are still super stoked for the wedding day, but have had to make a few changes to the original plan.

To start, Justin and I are still planning to get married in August, no matter what. Well, as long as we aren’t still required to stay-at-home by the Governor. We’ve weighed many options and tried to hold out as long as we could, before making the final decision: to have a smaller intimate wedding.

LISTEN ALSO | Podcast: How COVID-19 Made Us Change Our Wedding

The deciding factors include financial setbacks, size of the crowd, travel limitations and more. These could be factors effecting us personally or those effecting guests on the original guest list. This made it hard for us to put on the ceremony that we wanted, with the people we wanted.

As of now, the wedding will go on as planned in a few ways. We will still have the ceremony and reception on August 8 in Eddington, Maine. The big change is less than 50 people will be in attendance. Depending on the status of the pandemic and virus, other restrictions may be in place. Some of the guests are in the high-risk category, including the bride-to-be, and will have to be as careful as possible.

This may not seem like a huge deal to some, but we had to basically “un-invite” 30+ people from our wedding in a sense. People that mean a lot to us and we wanted to see our our special day. This includes both family and friends.

There is an emergency back-up plan. This will be a sort of eloping with a few people in attendance, but we hope the world will be in a better place by August and we can cross this option off our list.

One thing that we are hoping won’t change and we are still moving forward with is our honeymoon. This is something that is over half paid for and as long as we are allowed to travel, we are going. Look for more on our honeymoon in an upcoming post.

Due to the status of the COVID-19 pandemic, this may all change. However, at least we are going to be prepared. We have our health and safety, we can’t really complain.

Thanks for listening,