How to Wed During a Pandemic
A Newlywed’s Survival Guide
You have to admit, there’s something darkly funny about the title “How to Wed During a Pandemic.” Like, “How to Barn Dance During a Fire Drill” or “How to Harmonise During a Root Canal”. Remember March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic entered humanity’s corporate peripheral vision? My (then) fiancé and I had been planning our wedding for five months. We’d booked a Church, a venue and my wedding dress was being altered. Some of our family and friends had bought flights for our Summer ceremony in England. And then everything changed.
It’s been nine months since my husband and I got married and I feel okay with how it all went down last year. After tiredness, tears and counselling, I’ve made peace with our wedding story. In many ways, I am thankful for it. I am thankful that the stress and loss pushed Nate and I closer together and better prepared us for actually being husband and wife. Time has helped me learn lessons from last year, and I’d like to share these lessons for those navigating pandemic engagements. (A big shout-out to my friends who also got married last year. I’ve tried to share stuff I learned from you, too.)
First things first, your actual wedding day will probably be amazing (despite the stinky pandemic). The nerves, anticipation, excitement, attention, love and support will all swirl into an incredible feeling of delight. You get to look your fiancé in the eyes and say such profound vows and, in return, hear humbling promises. You’ll both look special with your wedding outfits, and you’ll feel special too. The day will be peppered with reminders of how many people are rooting for you as a couple and you’ll cling to one another in joy. This is your party day and, if your wedding is anything like mine, there won’t be room for stress or disappointment on the day because you’ll be caught up in the party.
Lessons for Before You Wed
Planning any event can be tricky, but nothing compares to planning a wedding during changing pandemic restrictions. There should be a badge of honour for this. It is hard to make basic wedding plans without knowing how many people will be allowed to be present on the day. Something predictable, then, is that wedding planning will likely be stressful. You can brace yourself for this. Be kind to yourself, and your fiancé. Have ice cream in the freezer. Guard time where you can shut off and forget about the to-do’s.
Alongside your fiancé, figure out what is most important about your wedding day - a handful of things. For Nate and I, it was that the day pointed to God, that our families were involved, and that our guests could get to know us better as a couple. Once you’ve together named your most-important wedding values, create room for them in your plans. When you have to replan (again and again), continue recreating these values in formats that work with the new restrictions.
Figure out what’s important to you to feel married, then incorporate these details into the day. (This is especially important if you’re anticipating a wedding day that’ll lack things you always imagined happening.) I really wanted confetti. And the, “You can now kiss the bride!” bit. I spoke up to make sure those things were included, and loved them happening.
You’ll need to decide (alongside your fiancé) what to do with other people’s expectations of your wedding day. My people-pleasing tendency meant that I wanted to collage together a wedding that met everyone’s expectations, but that pressure became overwhelming. For me, I wish I’d taken more time to understand what Nate and I wanted first.
Befriend other couples who wed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their empathy is soothing balm.
Try not to compare your loss or stress with other couples who are wedding during the pandemic. Or, if you’re human like me and find that too difficult, try to end pity-parties with remembering that all loss is hard and unwelcome, even if it seems someone else had it better than you.
If you’re incorporating tech into your day so you can publish your wedding online, it is really helpful to have someone designated to oversee this. You’ll likely need to spend time in advance thinking about what devices to use and how to arrange power cords, but on the day you won’t want to deal with any of this. Smooth-talk a friend into doing it for you.
Finally, if you’re planning on having a wedding with a separate post-pandemic celebration (Nate and I are doing this), be careful about what you promise to guests before your wedding. I’ve observed lots of couples enjoying their wedding day more than they expected, and finding that their celebration “counted” and that they don’t feel a strong need for a follow-up reception. If you can, my advice would be to wait until after you’re married to announce a follow-up celebration - after you’ve decided with your spouse that you’d still like to celebrate at a later date.
Lessons for After You Wed
Remember that stress I told you to expect? I would prescribe a relaxing, unplugged honeymoon. We had a great honeymoon where I wasn’t stressed for days on end. Our most taxing question was, “What shall we have for brunch?” It was bliss.
After you are married, it’s okay to not be okay. Marrying someone is a shower of transitions. This is especially true if you’ve chosen to wait to live together until you’re married, and if you’ve chosen to wait to have sex too. A lot of new experiences are layered all at once and handling transition is difficult. Handling the stress of planning your wedding during a changeable pandemic adds another layer. For me, I entered marriage with a deficit of quality sleep, self confidence, and self care.
If your wedding makes you feel sad/disappointed/bitter, take time to learn about loss. Grief isn’t reserved for major losses like the death of a relative; grief can stem from the accumulation of many little, subtle losses. Notice, name and list your wedding-related losses. Doing so will honour what you lost and allow you to pause and say, “Man, that was really hard to lose.” Then, you can let go. I needed to deconstruct my big losses (my family weren’t there when I got married) to their smaller components (my Dad didn’t walk me down the aisle; no one else had an English accent at my wedding; I had the sex-talk with my sister over the phone, etc.). Trust me, it helps to list the losses and to be detailed about it.
If you feel guilty about your wedding day, learn about justified and unjustified guilt. Separate what lingering guilt is a prompt for you to reflect and apologise, versus what lingering guilt is self-punishment for something out of your control. This was a big one for me and helped me move on. As pandemic restrictions constantly change, you’ll make wedding decisions that evolve to not work out great (think, “Why did we choose this date?!”). You don’t need to feel guilty about decisions that turn belly up. You did the best you could at the time and worked with the limited information you had. That’s all any of us can do - it’s enough.
Counselling is great. A few months into marriage I noticed that I was feeling less like myself and sad often. (Hindsight has shown me that I was finally opening to heal after months of coping and uncertainty.) I developed depression and counselling helped me agree that my reaction to the year made a lot of sense. My story isn’t yours and you might not need professional counselling, but for me it helped me to grieve and heal.
Finally, remember those other couples who wed during the COVID-19 pandemic? Treasure them. Their empathy is soothing balm.