October Brides/coronavirus Stress

I'm so sorry.

A lot of couples are having mini ceremonies/elopements and pushing the party to next year.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of safe ways to have bigger celebrations right now.

IDK, we were planning on having our wedding in October as well and decided to postpone because we were too stressed trying to figure out ways to make it safe. There just weren’t any ways to make it safe and enjoyable for everyone. And a week later the governor of our state issued more regulations on bars/restaurants and indoor events to a maximum of 25 people so I’m glad we made the decision early. We’ve since started planning a larger celebration for next year and our elopement for this fall. We both feel so much better and relieved. We didn’t want to put anyone else at risk due to our own selfishness, and realized it would have been selfish to move forward with things as they were originally planned. This way we can still get married and hopefully celebrate with friends and family later on.

We are Oct 11, also engaged for 1.5 years. We postponed our big celebration to next year, but are having a micro-wedding on our date still. We are planning 20 ppl total, outside garden ceremony, with the reception at my sister’s house. We are renting a tent for the backyard, along with tables, chairs and dinnerware. We will be providing dinner, and dancing to our song. Def not the wedding I originally planned, but we still want to get married with our immediate family and a select few friends. You can def still have a magical wedding day, and throw the party another time. If your state is locked down that much, you likely wont have a lot of guests attend if you move forward with a big day. I’m putting on our Details card that we are only hosting 20 people, so guests will (hopefully) feel more comfortable to attend. The whole situation sucks, but this is where we are, so we gotta make the best out of it

We're October 11 and i'm only making whatever changes we absolutely have to! I wasn't fond of the big wedding to begin with, so whatever our venue tells us to do, we'll be doing and the day will go on!

I'm so sorry you're going through this. This really sucks and is nothing short of awful. I'm dealing with it too--was a May bride, postponed to November 5th. Things dont seem to be getting much better, and even though we can have a whole wedding outside, a wedding outdoors is not ideal and could be problematic as I'm on the east coast and the weather could suck. We're afraid a good portion of our family will be too afraid to travel, or too afraid to attend even if they're close to the venue. (Including one of my bridesmen and matron of honor because they're on the other side of the country.) My photographer also emailed me today saying she doesn't feel comfortable due to being high risk due to her illness, leaving me only 2 months to find a new photographer. I've been engaged 2 years come October 2020.. I'll be 32 and want to move on with my life, get a house, have a baby. I reached my breaking point today...I'm just so stressed and tired of worrying about all the details, the vendors' needs, the guests needs.. I wish I had some advice to give you other than maybe getting married in someone's backyard or a park and save the party or next year. Although I completely understand the feeling of not wanting to do that at all. =[

To Elisa and the OP Katelyn: You are certainly not alone, and it helps me feel a bit better that I'm not alone myself. I've been engaged for THREE YEARS now (because we're funding the entire thing on our own and had to save money). We were originally scheduled for May 2020 and postponed to October 2020. I'm with you, Elisa, I'm 30 years old, and yes, we want to FINALLY have our big day, and start our family. Call me selfish; that may be true, but who isn't selfish about their own darn wedding?! We are moving forward with a smaller than planned guest list, but still probably going to have at least 50-75 people. 1) My heart just can't take it to postpone again and, more practically, 2) this virus isn't going anywhere. Schools are opening up, and the number of cases are not going to go down by next year. The state of affairs from October 2020 to, say summer 2021, is likely to be same or even worse. I wish I would've gone ahead with my May date -- cases were much better then!! But, there were stay at home orders and such. I just wanted to offer a different perspective -- we're still planning on moving forward, unless of course there's a category 3+ hurricane coming our way to the southeast coast (UGH -- another concern).

We are getting married on Oct 3rd. Luckily our venue is outdoor and we will still be at the very start of the cold and flu season. I TOTALLY get the not wanting to postpone. I thought we would have to and the FH said no way! IF it was just us, the bridal party, and immediate family we were doing it one way or another. If you truly don't want to maybe you guys can just cut back on guests and have a small one then delay the honeymoon until the you guys feel it is safe. We are still booking ours but only with a resort and airline that will allow us to schedule it later if need be. We believe that if we don't book it now we will never actually go.

We're in NY and we have had some pretty strict guidelines since March. I was also VERY optimistic and as it got closer I realized there really wasn't any hope.

FH and I have been together for over 5 years, postponing our marriage was NOT an option for me- absolutely not.

That being said: marriage, to me, was not synonymous with a big celebration with everyone present.

FH and I decided that we WOULD postpone our big celebration to next Summer- to be on the safe side. BUT, we WOULD still be getting married on our original date (10/25/2020) with exactly 8 people in attendance. My parents, his parents(and stepdad), his son, and his grandparents. We had to keep it to 10 people max because in NY we can't have more than 10 people at a restaurant table.

It isn't what we originally wanted. But, honestly, I'm looking forward to THAT more than I'm looking forward to my date in June with everyone there! At least my "legal wedding" will be stress free and have the most important people there. Then in June we'll renew our vows with all of friends and family present- and be all set. Best of both worlds!

This may not work for you- and that's okay! But it is something to think about

We're in a similar situation, but we are going to get married as planned anyway.

There has been so much uncertainty, delays, disappointments that I am just ready to get it over with!

I will celebrate with my friends and family when the situation permits. But I don't think I can delay my wedding for much longer.

Hey Katelyn!

Date twins here! We just canceled our venue and have decided to have a micro wedding on the lake and have a tiny reception at a nearby estate. With things changing daily it has for sure been rough. But not knowing what will happen next year we are ready for our day! I wish you the best if you guys do postpone!

We are in Upstate NY (Buffalo area) and we already postponed our wedding from June to October 17, 2020. We just learned yesterday that we cannot have dancing at our reception. We decided to continue with out 10/17/2020 date since it was stressful enough moving it from June. At this point we are ready to just say our I dos and have a nice dinner with family.

Gosh I could have written this post..my thoughts exactly...down to the hurricane thoughts!. Had also moved my May 24 wedding to October 18 and we're like ugh why didn't we just do it in May? We had hopes of getting his family here from California by October and now just hoping schools opening up don't set us backwards too much in NY... We're going to do a small wedding that our guests are able to watch on zoom (our videographer is going to be doing it for us) and then as soon as this is over I'm just gonna pick a random bar and have a fun night out with our friends! We're so ready to just put this behind us and start working towards the rest of our lives. As stressful as it is to make this as safe as possible it was worse having to deal with the devastation of postponing and the stress of contacting all our vendors. There's no predicting what will come next so kind of just ready to live in the moment. I don't find things changing much and who knows who will feel comfortable with a big wedding even a year from now so might as well just soak in the happiness of a wedding when we need it!