Anyone taking advantage of the pandemic?

I was super bummed initially, when we first had to reschedule our date. After a brief period of disappointment, I decided to start focusing on the positives that could come out of the situation. With an entire additional year of planning, I now had time to lose the weight I have put on during this pandemic! I also have more time to grow out my hair, which means I no longer have to spend money on extensions. Unfortunately, ever since surgery, I have suddenly started suffering from rosacea. With this extra time, I will now be able to get laser treatments, and hopefully get rid of (or at least severely diminish) the bumps and redness on my cheeks before our wedding (yay for easier make up application!). We will have an additional year to save money, which also means we can add several things we had initially wanted, but had decided against due to the costs. With lots of extra time to think about things, I have reconsidered several decisions & tweaked some others, including my cake design & guest list. Although I would have loved to have gotten married on our original date, I feel like our wedding will be even better now!

COVID is definitely giving us more time to save up and add a few things to our wedding! By postponing two years out to 2022, we're able to invite a few more guests, and since we weren't able to fit it in the budget for 2020, we're considering hiring a videographer for our 2022 date (though haven't decided for sure). The idea of postponing was sad/frustrating at first, but once we sat down and really talked it out, I think it was the best decision in more ways than just COVID, and I'm truly glad we postponed.

I was just thinking about this. Like for example our cocktail hour snacks. Normally it’d be a buffet and the caterer quoted about $9 pp for a variety of snack choices. With the current pandemic, open food and passed appetizers are a big no no so we opted for prepackaged snacks instead. Instead of roughly $450+ for 50 people we spent $123 at Sam’s Costco getting 7 different prepackaged snack options for about 60 people’s worth. We saved money and because of that, we were able to splurge on custom Pop vinyl figurines of us (which I always wanted but it wasn’t in the budget). So yeah, there are little good things that have come from this readjustment. It is important to keep in mind the positives of what was gained over the losses of what could have been.

I’m considering adding a videographer. We originally decided against one and were just going to have a photographer to keep budget lower. Now that we have more time it’s given me time to second guess and wonder if we should get a videographer as well? Also considering adding drapery to our decor!

PS- Love the mindset of this post! Since we’ve had to postpone our wedding twice already, it’s been so hard to get excited again. Following this thread because I need all the positivity I can get! Haha

It is definitely helping us to save more! Pushing off the wedding enabled FH to put the money towards a new car for himself, his other one was biting the dust. So he put the money toward a car instead and now has a year to save up for the wedding. We are also getting the best of two worlds with a small intimate ceremony this year (what FH wanted) plus a bigger wedding celebration next year (what I wanted).

COVID did force our original venue to go bankrupt, which did facilitate our decision to postpone, but we did end up choosing another nice venue that is also a hotel, and I feel a lot better about out of town guests having somewhere to stay if they have too much to drink, versus the other venue that, while very beautiful, didn't have any close hotels, or we would have had to pay for a shuttle, which I didn't want to do. So while we lost our top choice of venue, the new one is more conveniently located by the church, has a hotel, and takes care of the centerpieces and some decor, so I feel pretty good about that.

Chrysta - When I first started using WW and began soliciting advice for my large wedding in New Orleans, you were one of the first people to respond. Since that time, COVID hit and my fiance and I did a complete 180. Instead of a 250-300 person wedding in New Orleans, we are now doing a minimony with immediate family only (15 people) on the beach in my home state, Florida. We'll live stream the ceremony for the other guests. At first, I was so disappointed, sad and angry. My fiance and I met later in life (late 30s/early 40s), it's our first marriage, and I didn't think it was fair that we couldn't have the wedding that we planned and dreamed of. However, this pivot was a blessing in disguise. Once I got over the fact that we needed to change plans, I have become excited about my wedding again and I'm now focused on making sure our 15 guests have the best time ever. We're splurging on food and drinks and an awesome location (a resort on the beach connected to a number of shops and restaurants). I actually started working on my "second job" (that's what I call my wedding - lol) again last weekend -- and it felt good. This pandemic definitely sucks, but without it, I would have NEVER considered a smaller wedding. And I must say, I am very happy with our Plan B.

Love this post! We didn't postpone our date, but we've had some positives because of COVID. Yes we did cut our guest list down, but that definitely saved us more money. The option to live stream our ceremony probably wouldn't have even crossed my mind if COVID wasn't around. I'm super excited about this because even MORE of our friends and families who weren't originally invited can see us getting married virtually. And the money we saved from downsizing is now going towards a videographer, which we just booked about a month ago, and we weren't even planning on hiring a videographer before COVID!

Postponing made me pull the trigger on hiring a videographer. I wanted it to begin with but I’d already spent so much, personally.


Then we uninvited some people I wasn’t thrilled were coming in the first place. Score. And it saved some on food and alcohol.
I also made a crap ton more decor, remade my bouquet better than the first one. So there’s a lot more personal touches than before.

Heck yes! Covid allowed me to save money and convinced me to have an elopement with no one present. It showed me people's priorities, as far as our families saying they dont want to attend a wedding during the pandemic but they would have different strangers in their home and have children juggling between multiple homes, some that were completely unsanitary.

View Quoted Comment Did you go in and find the prepackaged snacks at sams/Costco or did you contact them? I was thinking of doing cocktail hour small snack options for my wedding that were planning ourselves and was thinking of going to sams/Costco but not sure what they have.

View Quoted Comment I feel exactly the same way- postponing was unexpected and disappointing, but ended up being the best decision (not just Covid related)

View Quoted Comment “ It is important to keep in mind the positives of what was gained over the losses of what could have been.”


I love this statement!! 💕

View Quoted Comment I went in and got what we wanted/needed in the bulk boxes. See the grocery cart photo below 😅
So my mom has a ton of serving bowls and we were able to figure out how to display it all with cute sayings. Like for goldfish - the sign would say “one less fish in the sea”


So it’s all DIY - we didn’t contact or coordinate anything with sams or Costco since it wasn’t platters or open things like they normally do.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much for the kind, positive words! It is such a hard time for everybody right now, I love that we can find the positives in this less than ideal situation!!

View Quoted Comment This is awesome! I know you were forced into the decisions, but it sounds like in the end it really was a blessing in disguise!!

View Quoted Comment Easier said than done sometimes 😅 Emotions are all over the place so have my mantra of “covid sucks. we’ll make it work. It’ll be great”

View Quoted Comment Oh yeah, and we also got these little bags so as people grab snacks they can create their own snack bags and hang it around their wrist so they have their hands free for their drinks.

With COVID we had to limit the number of guests which meant more money to spend on some other things and upgrade lots of things too! So we are able to add a chocolate fountain and a nicer cake and better food! So we have limited the number of guests but upgraded a few more things since we were planning on paying for 100 plus. We are debating about hiring a videographer and looking at giving better gifts to our BP too!

View Quoted Comment Hi Sharonda! 😊 I completely understand and empathize with your situation – I met my fiancé later in life as well. When the pandemic hit, I was like “SERIOUSLY?! I have waited this long to find my person and get married, and now (out of all years!) a pandemic hits the year of my wedding?! 😡😡 But now, I truly believe you & I both will have even better weddings than we had originally planned!! Although it is smaller, it sounds like your wedding is going to be much more extravagant than it originally would have been!! Your guests are going to have such a great time!! And hey, you and your hubby could always plan an anniversary trip to New Orleans in the future! You could even renew your vows while you’re there! 💕


(P.S. I am loving the “second job” 😂😂

View Quoted Comment Yes!! I love that you turned the negatives into positives!