Bam: Plan E, Part 1: a Novel

If you’ve seen any of my previous posts within the last few months, you’ll know that our wedding day was not as we first environed it would be. A brief synopsis: 3 weeks out from Plan A, we had to postpone due to COVID. Back in August, we changed from Plan B (Plan A, but in November) to Plan C (adventure elopement in Yosemite with reception in 2021) as our venue was talking about allowing ceremonies only for 50 people or less. We were thrilled with the new plan, even though we could only have 10 people in total (including officiant and photographers), which limited it to only parents. However, exactly one week out, Yosemite closed due to unhealthy air quality from fires in the area. We scrambled to find a Plan D, which I was able to find within a day thanks in part to help from MOB So Cal here on WW who suggested it as a location. Unfortunately, as I applied for the necessary permits, the location we chose ended up not being an option, so we had to choose a less than ideal ceremony spot in the same park (Plan E). If you’ve made it this far, bless you.


We ended up getting married on our 3rd anniversary; 9/24/2020. The night before, I picked up my sister (MOH) and BIL from the airport as they flew in from out of state to be there for the ceremony (Silver lining; since we were now not traveling to a destination and didn’t have a guest count limit, they were able to take just the day off of work to be there). The three of us stayed in an AirBnB about 10 minutes from the ceremony location. I woke up the next morning at 4:45 to greet my HMUA. She did an incredible job, though we didn’t finish until 7:20 or so, which put me a bit later than I had wanted to be. We got to the park around 7:50 (of course there was work traffic since it was a weekday). I waited in the car until our photographers told everyone where to stand (I gave them final say on the exact location in the general space since I knew they would find a spot with perfect light/background/etc) and then my sister, dad, and I walked down a trail to the ceremony location. Our ceremony was simple and sweet, no music, only my sister as the processional. We were done within 15 minutes and spent the next hour or so taking family and couples portraits. We did sneak to the location I had originally wanted to do the ceremony at for pictures and I’m so glad we did.
After pictures, my mom and stepdad had to take my sister and BIL to the airport to catch their flight, so I met my dad, his aunt, new in-laws (MIL, FIL, BIL), and our officiant and his wife at a local brunch spot for a post wedding meal. My husband and I were home by noon and spent the rest of the day trying to nap and just relax. We did go eat dinner at the place we met 3 years ago, which was a perfect cap to the day. We then slept for the next 11 hours.
While it wasn’t the original (or even second, third, or fourth) plan, it was a lovely day. Now, we’re planning for our post-wedding photo shoot in Yosemite with our incredible photographers in a few weeks and our big party next November when it’s hopefully safe to have large groups of people together again. Our photographers sent a few sneak peeks to us yesterday, and these three were my favorites (the last one was a request by my mom...my sister has the same shot from her wedding, so I’ll put both of ours side by side in a nice frame as a Christmas present for mom).