How to plan a wedding and then re-plan it during a global pandemic
If you told me I would have the most wonderful wedding in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, I would not have believed you. But here we are, 3 years later, and I have nothing but fond memories of 8/8/20.
Imagine your dream wedding is all planned...
The venue is booked, all the dresses and suits are purchased, the guests are starting to book travel. And then March 2020 happens, the Covid-19 pandemic is announced, and the world literally shuts down. Read on for how we changed almost all the plans we had and still had the best wedding ever!
Tip #1 Learn to be flexible when planning a wedding
Planning a wedding is stressful in even the best of circumstances.
Remember when we all thought we'd be home for only 2 weeks in March 2020? Fun times!
Here's a timeline for you: Sean and I got engaged in July of 2019, picked our original venue in September of 2019 and by March of 2020, had a lot of the wedding details planned already. We're both "planners" so we wanted to get as much as we could done. We also originally planned on having about 150 people at the wedding, including family from across the country and Europe as well.
As our wedding date got closer, we had to make the decision as to if we were going to proceed as planned, cancel, or plan something else. Our wedding venue (which I will not name) wanted us to proceed as planned and said, "everything will be fine, don't worry about it!" Thankfully, we had only put a small deposit down and did not end up throwing much money away. But around May, we decided there's no way all of our guests would feel comfortable at a "normal" wedding, indoors, with a hundred plus other people. It was heartbreaking, but we knew it was for the best. Our plans then changed and we decided we still wanted to get married on 8/8, and we would throw the best "micro-wedding" ever!
Tip #2 Figure out what you truly want and need while planning a wedding
I was amazed on how quickly we put together our "new" wedding once we decided to change everything! I can't thank our family and friends enough for helping. The biggest hurdle was figuring out where we were going to hold the wedding, but thankfully, Sean's parents offered up their house in Los Angeles (where we lived nearby at the time) and had a beautiful backyard to hold it in. And after talking to all of our original guests, we cut back our guest count from 150 to 25 people. A lot of people still didn't feel comfortable traveling, so we just had immediate family and local LA friends who did feel comfortable being there with us. We also followed all the precautions, kept everything outside, and people wore masks if they wanted to. I'm also super happy that no one got sick and everything went perfectly!
Once we had the location, the next part was the decorations. Luckily, our friends Margaret and Liz should be professional wedding planners and really helped us make our dream a reality. I really wanted a simple and elegant design and our colors were dark teal and silver which we had already picked for our original plan.
Our friends helped us get table decorations, including fake florals for the table (nobody can tell the difference) and we rented tables and chairs from another friend's recommendation.
Speaking of florals, my mom is the queen when it comes to gardening. So she was happy that she was able to make my wedding bouquet as well as the boutonniere for Sean. And pro tip if you need florals - get them from Trader Joe's! They are pretty inexpensive and you can special-order them. Give them a call about a week in advance telling them what you want. And they will add it to their weekly order and send it to the store near you!
As for the food, we decided to go with one of our favorite restaurants in LA, Benny's Tacos. We love Mexican food and since we were going to have a small wedding, why not just get yummy tacos for everyone! Since we were only feeding about 30 people, getting it catered was ideal!
And can't forget about cake! Again, we are super lucky that one of our friends is a baker! Check her out if you need some delicious desserts in LA - Mumm's Cakery. We seriously have the best friends in LA! We had a kind of weird request that we wanted our favorite cake, red velvet, but dyed to match our teal color scheme. It was amazing! She also added some delicious cookies and cinnamon rolls for our dessert table. And she even made us a mini version for our 1 year anniversary instead of the tradition of saving the top tier. Because no one wants to eat year old, freezer-burned, cake!
With the photographers, The McFarlands, we had already booked them for the date and put down a deposit. Thankfully, they were willing to travel up to LA from Orange County and gave us a discount for only needing them for a few hours instead of the whole day. We got all the photos we needed of our bridal party and of the day. We didn't get a videographer but did have a friend (again with the great friends!) who videotaped the ceremony for us.
Tip #3 Remember it is your day, so focus your wedding planning on you and your fiancé
I'm going to be super cheesy for a second. At the end of the day, all that really matters is that you and your fiancé are happy. Sean and I are both pretty laid back and just wanted to celebrate our day with our close family and friends. If you choose to spend tons of money for a lavish celebration or have an elopement with just you and your fiancé, just try to remember why you are doing it - for love! I think one of my favorite moments of the day was before the wedding, Sean and I did a first look with just us and the photographers. We wrote our own personal vows that we shared between us. It was very special and personal. I highly recommend taking the time to spend a moment with just you two away from everything.
Details:
Dress - David's Bridal - I got my dress on Black Friday so I got a really good deal! I was not going to spend thousands of dollars on a dress to wear once.
Suits - Northridge Suit Outlet. One of the groomsmen got his wedding suits from here and Sean decided to do the same. They are super affordable and good quality!
Bridesmaids dresses- Azazie - All the bridesmaids got their dresses early 2020, expecting to be able to wear them. Thankfully, they did get to wear them at my post-wedding bachelorette party. Everyone got the "peacock" color dresses in chiffon but got to pick whatever style they wanted. See all the details from my bachelorette party: here
Hair - Maddy's Salon (my regular hairdresser in Los Angeles)
Makeup - One of my good friends Vicky. I was going to do makeup myself and thankfully she saved me!
Photography - The McFarlands They were awesome and really affordably priced!
Rings - Blue Diamond Jewelry El Segundo Ravi is the best! Sean got my engagement ring here - designed it himself! And we also worked with them to design both of our wedding rings.
I hope this helps you plan your wedding! If you have any questions that I didn't answer here, let me know!
- Lex
Comments