2020 Wedding frustrations

Our wedding is scheduled for October and everything I've read the county we are getting married in has a mask mandate indoors or outdoors. But I also read that they were really not going to be sticklers at weddings. I have decided to give each of my guests masks and hand sanitizer and allow each of them make the choice on if they choose to wear or not. 50% of our guests are immediate family and the other 50% are our close friends - we are all essential workers and have been together through the the last going on 5 months.

I don't want masks in my pictures, but masks are here to stay for quite awhile. My advice to you is whatever you choose, just be confident in your decision. Once you make it, don't look back. Because if for whatever reason it's the "wrong" decision you will always wonder "what if."

Hey girl, I totally feel you on this...I was already stressed out to the MAX and then I realized I was going to be a COVID bride. UGH! All I can hope for is that it'll be a fun story to look back on. My situation is a bit different than yours, because our wedding was already going to be relatively small, with a second reception in my hometown to accommodate my huge family. ( Budget issues and I live across the country from the majority of my family) So thankfully we haven't had to downsize too much. Our maximum limit due to COVID is 75 people and we are expecting about 80, so we are hoping that it will lift a bit or that some families will decide to leave the kiddos home. We are requiring masks, as our vendors and staff have to wear them and I personally feel that it is rude to not wear a mask when they have to. We will take them off for posed pictures. Our favors are bath and body pocketbacs and masks in a favor bag, handed to guests at the door with a spritz of sanitizer from our ushers. Our ceremony and cocktail hour will be outside and our reception will be indoors. We are having a appetizer/dessert buffet with a server and everything will be in single servings so the food won't be touched. Our reception is only 2 hours and we aren"t having dancing because I don"t want to and also COVID rules. We will be separating tables as best we can, and we will be asking people to refrain from close contact (ie front hugs, handshakes, kisses etc) with those not in their family unit. We haven't planned the second reception yet but it will have the same changes.

I know this SUCKS and it's so hard to not be able to have that picture perfect wedding, but I'm trying to see the brighter side of things so I don't go totally crazy. I've been an essential worker through this whole thing and have been taking as many precautions as I can, and I feel like we can go about our wedding safely. We've been very open with our families about our requirements and if they feel uncomfortable or cannot come due to medical issues than we will be happy to celebrate with them from afar.

Here are some things we've bought to make our wedding fun despite COVID!

Our masks! They say "Quarantined for Life" with our name and date.

This sign is going by our bucket for our favors! (masks and sanitizer)

We got these labels for the pocketbacs and they are so CUTE!

Lol - i've always heard people say something always goes wrong at a wedding, it's never going to be perfect. I think every 2020 CoVid screwed bride can literally top ANYONE who has tried to say this or that has gone wrong at their wedding.

The saddest part is that to me no matter what decision we decided to come to was not going to feel OK with me because the whole situation sucked. This should have been something wonderful to celebrate now just turned to ruin. My honest opinion is really really think about what YOU want for your wedding. Not what everyone else wants for it; because you'll have to live with it. You'll have to live with all those memories, consequences, hurts, pains, regrets. You'll have to see those pictures for the rest of your life - not them. And whatever choice you make, if that's not good enough for anyone else then TOO BAD.

Please try not to feel the guilt or selfishness of wanting your pictures to be nice or wanting your wedding still. you are paying A LOT OF MONEY FOR YOUR WEDDING, and you should get the best out of it. Plus, at the end of this day, all you'll have is those pictures and your memories of this day. I know for me, i said the same thing - it seems selfish but i don't want people wearing masks at our wedding - and honestly it seems silly to me cause we have a lot of food at our wedding, and people gonna be touching their faces a lot from removing their masks and stuff or trying to re-adjust them when they speak, etc. - but i can't stop them - there's gonna be one day i look at those pictures and go - oh dang who is that or say wow - this was supposed to be such a happy occasion - and i can't even see anyone's face or smiles.

and yes - everyone seems to have some great insight and opinion to tell you about how to plan your wedding when its not them who has to pay or plan the wedding or look at the pictures for the rest of your life. None of those people are having their wedding destroyed by such a crappy thing out of everyone's control.

We made the hard choice to push to next year, 2 days ago - we called our guests to find out their comfort level - most expressed they were on for it, a few very key people we really wanted there were like yeah we're thinking we're gonna skip... other than the extreme sour taste that left us (even though we understand it's hard not to be upset by it) it's not worth the risk of someone getting sick from this thing - all i can tell you is that i had CoVid back in April - i'm STILL dealing with side effects going on 4 months later - it's absurd, my FH he's 100% better, my uncle who also had it died of it 3 people 3 very different scenarios. To me, it just seemed to be a waste of money for us cause we were only planning for 50 - 70 guests to begin with and the idea that they're just not gonna come - or they won't enjoy the whole thing cause they won't be comfortable dancing or using our photobooth or getting the full cocktail hour experience we have planned...

But honestly, i'm in the i'm sick of waiting to marry boat and FH and i decided to have a small private wedding, just us and our immediate families - who want to come. We'll have the big one next year still (although i personally think 2 weddings are stupid but whatever best resolution to a crappy scenario). we're going to just do that and have a nice dinner in a restaurant, call it a day on this bust of a stupid year straight out of hell. Our photographer is very sweet, he said he'd come to our wedding and shoot our actual private ceremony for us still.

I said the same as you. I feel bad about postponing, cause this whole time i wasn't convinced we'd have it this year but everyone i expressed that to, was like NO YOU HAVE TO DO IT or October is so far away you'll be fine! They really want to come - they booked their flight blah blah blah (turns out when i asked them again they were like yeah not sure i want to come anymore which leads me to believe we would have had a pretty empty wedding which would be even more horrible). And I'm not 100% convinced things will just be better by the spring or whatnot. There's a chance this might just be a way of life that will require adapting to... also i've been sitting here like i put so much time and effort into the whole thing and now i can't even have it? Truth is - those dresses can sit on a shelf and wait til next year. and really the difference between a guest's outfit of $150 tops (maybe) vs the thousands of dollars for your wedding...eh let them take the hit if that's the case. Those plane tickets and hotel rooms can be cancelled. I doubt you are gonna plan to "redo" the wedding though if it turns out bad - that was my logic anyway. We're pushing to October 2021 - if its not better by then i'm cancelling all together and using my money for a house.

Good luck in your choice as it IS a very hard choice to make no matter what you choose and what ever you DO choose, i hope its everything you want.

It's of course such a hard decision to make, and not one you'd ever think you'd have to! We tossed around the idea of having an intimate ceremony with less than 30 people and throwing a "reception" at our ranch afterward (because our venues made us postpone - & with masks, social distancing, etc.), but I don't feel safe even doing that. In my opinion, no matter how safe you think you are, there can be 1 person there who's asymptomatic and gets other people sick. I have anxiety about the virus as it is already, I didn't want to worry about that while I should be celebrating my wedding. So, we decided to elope on our original date. We did plan to postpone originally, but now we're canceling altogether. We will plan something smaller in the future to celebrate with our friends and family. Just too risky right now. But we weren't going to wait to get married because we've been together for 8 years already. I also am sad that when I actually get married, my grandpa won't be walking me down the aisle, but that's why we'll have a ceremony with everyone else to do things as planned in the future. Do what feels right while keeping the safety of others in mind. I think it's great that you requested people to be socially distant in the weeks before the wedding, but unfortunately, no one can guarantee that.

We're getting married in October and moving forward with our guest list of 250. Our mindset is, "If you can come, great! If you can't or don't feel comfortable, that's okay too." We just want to get married, which might be selfish, but we're tired of waiting. At the end of the day, just remember why you're doing all of this. It's super irritating and disappointing that we can't have a normal experience like everyone else, but we just have to make the best of the situation. You get to marry your best friend. Focus on that