Our Wedding Story: Getting Married During A Pandemic
All Masked Up For Our Wedding. Photo by Dominic Smith Photography.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CORONA
Here in this blog post you can read about our wedding journey and also my advice for anyone getting married soon.
When we started our wedding planning journey, never in our wildest dreams did we ever think we would be facing the possibility of postponing or cancelling our wedding, especially due to a worldwide pandemic. In fact, I still wake up some days thinking this has all been a crazy dream. I assume like many others I’m still struggling to wrap my head around the fact that something like this could actually happen, and under all these restrictions, it’s fair to say I think we’ve all taken our many freedoms for granted. Our wedding day definitely wasn’t anything at all like we’d planned and whilst there are some aspects that we definitely missed (like having all our family and friends there) we actually ended up having such an incredible day, made even more special by the sheer fact that we were even able to get married at all.
Our Couple’s Photos. Photo by Dominic Smith Photography.
A ROLLERCOASTER TWO YEARS
After 9 years together, we finally got engaged in August 2018. Being the organized person I am (or as my husband would probably argue, being the crazy control freak that I am!) within a day I had created many spreadsheets, full of budgets, guest lists and lists of wedding tasks to do. I didn’t want to be one of those stressed out ‘bridezillas’ so I wanted to make sure everything was organized and planned in plenty of time before the day, plus I was just excited to start planning of course! We decided to get married almost exactly two years after we got engaged to give us enough time to plan and save as much money as we could. By December 2018, we had already booked our venue for the ceremony and reception, booked the registrar, sorted out our catering package and by January I had even sorted out my dress. We went for, what I would describe as, the typical British wedding- around 80 days guests and 150 for the evening, with a full day consisting of ceremony, drinks and canapés, photos, a sit-down 4 course meal, followed by an evening reception with a buffet and DJ. As 2020 came around, we excitedly started our wedding countdown.
I remember sitting having a coffee with my parents in March 2020, discussing the news about corona virus, and like most others, naively sharing the view that it was all a little over-the-top and everything would be fine. Then a week or two later we all went into complete lockdown. Most of our family and friends reassured us that our wedding was too far off to be affected and that we would be fine, but having been following the situation in Italy who were ahead of us, as time went on we knew this pandemic wasn’t going anywhere soon and that we would have to face the possibility of postponing or cancelling our wedding. We agreed very early on that, should anything happen, we would still get married, even if it was just the two of us and two witnesses. But that didn’t make it any easier of course.
In April our venue contacted us asking what we would like to do, as many couples getting married in the summer had already decided to postpone their weddings. After a lot of thought we decided we would split our wedding package, allowing us to still have the ceremony on our date, but having the rest of the wedding day (with all our guests) later on in October. We went through the process of notifying all of our friends and family about the change, and everyone was very supportive. All of our wedding vendors changed to our new October date with no problems and this even saved us some money with the venue. Somehow we had managed to come out on top out of a difficult situation.
Fast forward to June, and we are starting to get excited. Restrictions are starting to lift and it is looking very positive that our ceremony will still go ahead. Then the government finally announced that weddings could now go ahead with restricted numbers, so of course we were overjoyed. A few days later I received an email from our venue; it was rather long and it was 10am in the morning and I was working so I took a quick glance at the first paragraph, which basically stated that the government was allowing weddings to take place and venues to open. ‘Great’ I thought, then closed the email to read the rest later when I was home. I’m so glad that I didn’t have time to read the rest of that email.
I got home after a very long and stressful day, and decided to have a read in the hopes that some news about our wedding would cheer me up. To my horror, after stating all the new government guidelines that venues could open, the email then went on to say that the venue had decided to stay closed however, and that our wedding would be cancelled. So not only had our venue cancelled our wedding a mere 4 weeks before the day, but they had also done it by a copy and paste email instead of a phone call, and they had also suggested that we postpone our October celebration too. Naturally we were devastated and wanted to cut ties with the venue completely, and somehow find a way we could still get married on our date.
It is at this point that we actually realized how lucky we are. All our friends and family immediately came to our aid. My mum in particular pretty much saved the day; she went to the vicar of our village church to ask if he could help, and also went to another local hotel to see if they could help too. Both Nick the vicar and Jackie from Stanhill Court, amongst many others, went above and beyond for us and with everyone’s help we somehow managed to replan our entire wedding within a few days, with under 4 weeks to go before the day. Everyone came to together to make something seemingly impossible happen. And with the help of my mother-in-law, we even managed to get all of our money back from the previous venue. There were still a few complications due to the many restrictions surrounding weddings and gatherings, but finally on the 31st July 2020, we did get married.
Watching the sun go down. Photo by Dominic Smith Photography.
THE BIG DAY
Our day was very different to how we had originally planned but nonetheless it was still the best day of my life. In fact, I was so relieved that we were getting married at all that I was so relaxed the entire day and I didn’t stress about anything at all. I stayed at my parents the night before, then in the morning we staggered everyone’s arrival so we could maintain some sort of social distancing. My hairdresser came early, followed by our photographer. I then did my own makeup as makeup artists still aren’t allowed to work currently. Then my bridesmaids arrived after each getting ready in their own homes as we felt this would be safer. So other than the staggering of everyone’s arrival, the morning went pretty much normally as it would’ve done. Then my dad borrowed my uncle’s Morris Minor and drove us to the church, followed by everyone else in their own cars.
Our ceremony was held at St. Mary Magdalene’s Church in Rusper, and instead of 80 guests we had a total of 18 instead alongside our photographer and videographer who were there to document everything for those guests who could not make it. We also had a cellist for music which was amazing. Everyone in the church (except us) had to wear masks whilst inside, which of course no one enjoyed but it is what it is. In fact, looking back at some of the photos of everyone in masks is quite funny, and it’s definitely a story to tell in the future. Everyone had to be spread out inside the church too, leaving every other pew vacant. Initially there was talk of my husband and I wearing masks too, but we came to the conclusion that this was unnecessary and honestly a little ridiculous, not only because we are from the same household, but also because this is fundamentally a LEGAL proceeding, which shouldn’t actually take place if you cannot verify the identity of the parties involved. It’s literally the reason why brides must remove veils from their face before the legal part of the ceremony begins. So luckily we got out of that one. Plus I’m not sure how you can ‘kiss the bride’ with a mask on!
During the ceremony, the vicar kindly left the back doors open and a crowd soon started forming outside. Once we were pronounced man and wife we exited the church to find a big crowd (all socially distanced of course) of a load of our friends and family who were not allowed to come to the ceremony due to the restrictions. They all cheered as we exited and it was such an emotional, incredible moment. All those people came to see us despite everything, to share in our love and it really was a ‘love conquers all’ kind of moment.
After we took a few photos at the church, we said farewell to the majority of our friends and family and continued on to our ‘reception’ which was a simple evening meal at Stanhill Court Hotel in Charlwood, who did everything they could to make it feel like a proper wedding reception for us, even though there were only 8 guests! Even our cake maker opened up her kitchen especially for us and delivered it to the hotel so we could still cut our cake. And our photographer stayed with us the whole day, right up until sunset so we could get some incredible photos.
Overall, the day was so relaxed and informal. Everyone was just so happy we could get married, that there was no resentment at all from any of our guests who couldn’t come. Everything was different to the original plan, from having a small amount of guests, having to have masks on during the ceremony and also adjusting some parts of the ceremony to conform with the restrictions, and then having an even smaller amount of guests for a meal with no dancing and drinking reception after. But it was all so wonderful and looking back I wouldn’t change any of it. Anyone who is currently going through a similar situation, especially involving guests wearing masks etc., I can tell you that regardless of how anxious you are about it now, none of it will matter on the day. It all made the day even more special due to the fact that we were so lucky we could get married at all.
Our best man took this photo (below) at the end of the night and it is one of my absolute favourites from the day as it completely sums up the day for me. A relaxed, intimate affair shared with just our immediate family, made even more special and emotional from the awful circumstances we had overcome to get here.
Guests' Photos From Our Wedding
ARE YOU STRUGGLING WITH YOUR WEDDING PLANS TOO?
If you are a bride or groom currently planning your wedding in all this craziness, first advice I would give is to not panic. Just try to relax and stay calm and remember the reason why you are planning this wedding in the first place. Your wedding may be postponed, or it may be going ahead a little differently to what you had planned, but the main thing to focus on is the fact that you will absolutely get married one way or another.
If you are going ahead with your wedding under the restrictions, try not to worry too much about the little details. In the lead up to our wedding we had a rehearsal at the church, and honestly the amount of small changes we had to make in order to adapt to the restrictions started to make everything a bit clinical and when we found out everyone had to wear masks I was a bit upset at first. Let’s be honest it’s not ideal getting your ceremony photos back and seeing everyone in masks! But once we were outside taking the official photos everyone could take them off, and actually throughout the ceremony I barely noticed the fact everyone was wearing masks, and the ceremony ended up being a lot more ‘normal’ than I had anticipated. In fact it was incredibly beautiful and nothing felt clinical or wrong. Actually, we made a few jokes about it all, which really lightened the mood, and when we look back at our photos we won’t be thinking how annoying it was that everyone was wearing masks. I imagine we will be thinking how amazing it was that we managed to get married at all under the circumstances and it’s certainly something to tell the grandkids!
So if you’re due to get married and your nervous about it all, seriously don’t sweat the small stuff, you will barely notice on the day and you will look back at the photos in the future and see the funny side I promise. Embrace the weirdness of it all, it’ll only make the day even more memorable!
Hopefully you enjoyed reading about our wedding journey and hopefully I helped set your mind at ease a little if you are getting married soon too. Just focus on what you’re doing this for. Love conquers all!
Some of these amazing photos may end up being cropped slightly due to the formatting on Squarespace so if you want to see the originals please visit the link here where you can see the sneak peek of our photos from our incredible photographer Dom, who I have to say has been our crutch throughout all of this; the whole time he was checking in on us to make sure everything was okay and he was always full of advice and help. I couldn’t speak more highly of him!
VENDORS AND SUPPLIERS:
Ceremony Venue: St Mary Magdalene Church in Rusper, West Sussex
Evening Meal Venue: Stanhill Court Hotel in Charlwood, Surrey
Photographer: Dominic Smith Photography
Videographer: Xander Phillips
Wedding Dress: Wed2B in Brighton Marina
Bridesmaid Dresses: Also Wed2B in Brighton Marina
Groomsmen suits: Cavani
Hairdresser: Kathy Thompson
Cake Maker: Deborah of Raspberry Ribbon Cakes
Makeup: Myself
Flowers: My aunts, cousins and mum
Rings: Smooch Jewellers
Cellist (ceremony music): Emily at Celli Quartet
Morris Minor: Kindly lent to us by my uncle
