Who else is disappointed about their Covid wedding?

I'm gonna be a brat here and say I'm disappointed that we arw having any guests at all. It will just be our parents abd I really wanted it to be a true elopement, just FH & I. We already had to change several things to take our parents' COVID fear into consideration

I'm so sorry that it didn't turn out the way you hoped! COVID really messed things up for so many people this year. My fiance and I ultimately decided to postpone our wedding due to COVID, and it felt like it took a lot of excitement away from the thought of my wedding. Are you able to plan a vow renewal for your first anniversary (or a different anniversary), once COVID isn't as much of a threat? That may help give a "re-do" in a way, and you can make some happy memories (and get to wear your dress again)!

I had a small wedding of 20 guest. My day wasn't all that great either. I had spent 8 hours in the hair salon and literally arrived at the venue 30 mins before it was time for me to walk down the aisle. I still had to do my makeup and get dressed. My husband forgot the speaker so there was no music. We only had the venue for two hours and we spent most of our time out taking pictures instead if mingling with our guest. We didn't get to eat until we got home. It was literally a horrible day and the only good part was the fact I married my best friend. We are scheduled to have a full size reception in June.

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Be a brat! I wish my husband and I had eloped just the two of us. I feel like if we had made the day completely about us without any consideration for anyone else we could have made it really unique and special. Instead it feels like we compromised so others could be there and then having them there didn't make the experience any better.

The two things that irk me the most about our ceremony was that my mom's friend (who wasn't invited to our wedding) was there when many of the people we loved and wanted there could not be and that my husband's parents were so fearful about Covid they wouldn't even hug or touch us and in the photo of him with his parents (he's standing near them, but no physical contact) his mom looks like she's being tortured. I feel like if had just been the two of us we could have erased Covid from the equation and it would have felt like we were celebrating something special. Instead the entire event and everything we did (except for our first dance and couple's photos) felt like a compromise wrapped in caution tape.

View Quoted Comment Oh no that sounds awful! I'm so sorry, Love. Hopefully you can have a vow renewal that is celebrated exactly how you want it. I love your profile pic from your ceremony. It's very romantic 💗💗💗

We were originally planning for June 20, but decided to postpone until December 19. Our wedding is in two days. Thursday my mom and I went to pick up my dress and pick out ties for my dad and brother. Today she called me and said that my brother and his family (Including my flower girl) will not be attending, and they are basically only attending because they have all the decorations. I already feel like the day is going to be a total disaster, and am so tempted to just call the whole thing off. I'm so sorry that you are feeling disappointed, but I totally understand.

I’m so sorry you’re feeling this way about your wedding day! I will assure you that you are not alone. If you look through enough of these posts, many people who decided to do a mini-mony or downsized considerably have had their down days. However, I’m sure regardless of whatever disappointments you had in your day, you must also have had moments of joy and happiness as well. You got to marry your husband and spend that day with people close to you. So what if your in-law’s didn’t hug you, my mother-in-law has never hugged me LOL. You’ll have plenty of years for her to hug you and like a previous poster said, maybe in the future you will have an opportunity to have a large vow renewal and celebrate in a different way in the future.


I will have to go against you here though, we had our wedding last weekend with a whopping 32 people including ourselves and it was honestly the greatest day of our lives. We were surrounded by family and friends who were truly there for us. One of our friends during reception sat down next to us and said, look around this room, everyone in here will be someone you still speak to in 20 years. My husband and I were just taken back by that comment. We truly will be friends with every single person who came to our wedding and they will be in our lives in 20 years and beyond. They were all people we speak to on a weekly if not daily basis. That’s something extremely special that without all of this pandemic nonsense we would not have had. Embrace your wedding day for what it was and look forward to many years of happiness in the future.
On your 20th anniversary throw a 500 person bash and party the night away. ❤️ Congratulations on your wedding and many bright wishes for your future!

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I feel you! All of our vendors were willing to change our date, but not refund our deposits, so we moved everything to June 2021. I was disappointed but at least had that to look forward to. Now our venue is saying they don't anticipate being able to host a normal event then either. So we can move to 2022 (or gamble on fall 2021) or later, or cancel altogether and forfeit most of our deposits (two vendors will give us partial refunds, the rest won't).

We never wanted a long engagement (just enough time to plan our wedding), so gave ourselves 9 months to plan mostly because we knew we wanted an outdoor wedding and live in New England so that's how the timing worked out (we got engaged in August and couldn't throw everything together in just a couple months, so planning for May seemed realistic and not too rushed but not too long of a wait). We had everything planned, all vendors booked and contracts signed, and all of the stationary, decor, etc all purchased already when Covid hit. We put our invites in the mail on a Monday when people just started whispering about Covid and by Friday everything was shutting down. So being so close and then pushing our 9 months of waiting out to 21 months of waiting and now more like 24-36 months at the earliest is just torture.

We've been together for five plus years and are in our mid-30s and were excited to get married and go on our last big trip and start a family. It feels like Covid has shattered everything. I'm 35 now (my husband is 38) and we need to move on with our lives. I'm worried about picking another date and having to move it again because of pregnancy or a newborn, and so much of what I was excited for about our wedding doesn't really "fit" if we don't have a ceremony or we have a baby in tow. Plus all of the money we budgeted feels really excessive if it's not even a "real wedding" anymore.

I don't know. I feel like if I could imagine it still happening the way we wanted I could get excited, but I'm just fearful now. I just feel like I'm being forced to choose between celebrating my marriage or starting a family. It sucks.

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I hope your reception in June is everything you want it to be!

Oh girl, I am sorry, but so appreciate you sharing. My "getting ready" was a bit of a disaster too. Nearly everything was still shut down when we had our wedding (no hotels, no restaurants, the hair salon had just opened), so we ended up having my mom (who lives out of state) and her friend (who wasn't invited to our wedding at all but my mom wouldn't drive herself) crash at our home for the weekend. We have a 900 square foot house with two tiny bedrooms and a 49 square foot bathroom, so they were in the living room and spare room and I had to share my bathroom with three other women while getting ready for my own wedding. I literally had to negotiate mirror time between people's showers. I had been planning to have my hair and makeup done at the salon, but when I told them I had to cancel the big wedding, they gave away my spot. They ended up being able to squeeze me in with a new stylist who had no clients - so this person had never met me before, had no idea face looked like, and never worked on my hair before - and I had to do my own makeup at home (in between others steaming up the bathroom).

My mom, her friend, and my best friend, all of whom stayed with us, live out of state so we had to host them the whole weekend because they knew nothing about the area. My husband cooked the meals for everyone for the whole weekend, including our wedding dinner. We had ZERO privacy on our wedding night and couldn't even enjoy being newlyweds until after everyone finally left us our house the next day.

The wedding itself was super short and we didn't have a meal at all (everyone was so on edge about Covid still). Our entire event was a first look, vows, exchange of rings, kiss, dance, pop champagne, cut a cake. My mom and her friend weren't ready when I had to leave the house to go to our venue, and got really upset because they didn't know how to get to the venue and wanted to follow us (they had the address and a GPS, and knew what time I needed to leave by). Earlier in the day my mom and I got in a fight about decorating the arbor and then my mom's friend had the nerve to scold me and tell me I should be nicer to my mom. At the ceremony site, we didn't have chairs or an aisle or music, so my husband and I just picked a spot in a field and said our vows, while our guests stood around. My friend who was supposed to officiate was late. My MOH didn't follow up about getting her dress so she never got it in time and what she wore completely clashed with everything else, and at the last minute she decided she didn't want to drive my mom which is why my mom's friend came, taking up space of someone else we wanted there instead. My husband's parents wouldn't hug us at all. We have no family photos (of us as a couple with our families) from our wedding.

The weather was beautiful. Bugs were bad, but not as bad as the week before. My photographer was amazing and having a professional there made it feel a bit more like something special. My husband brought a Bluetooth speaker for our first dance, and that was really nice because I was able to get lost in that moment enough to forget all the BS happening around us. We were able to have our dog there. After the wedding we drove to our friends house instead of our house and they got all dressed up and greeted us with champagne in the backyard and we just hung out with them for maybe 40 minutes before going home it was so nice to just be with our friends and away from our families and the stress. Sitting in our wedding clothes with our friends in their backyard drinking champagne felt like more of a celebration than any other part of that day. In the end we got married, and I'm 100% glad we did, but I just wish we hadn't tried to make it a minuscule version of what we originally planned to include our parents. When it was clear the wedding we wanted wasn't going to happen because of Covid, we should have thrown the plans we had out the window and did a total 180.

Thank you for sharing. I'm sorry your day wasn't what you wanted it to be but feel so grateful that you opened up as it helps me to know I'm not alone in feeling disappointed by how Covid ruined our wedding. I really hope your reception feels like a celebration and makes up for your ceremony being less than you dreamed.

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Thank you. Fortunately our photographer was willing to come out and shoot our elopement, and she got some great images even with the really limited activities we were doing and short timeframe. She made our day feel special because she was so professional and treated us just the same as if it had been a big wedding. She was also supposed to get married just a couple weeks before us and had to similarly change her plans and do a small elopement because of Covid, so having that shared experience was also somewhat comforting as well.

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Oh Kayse I am so sorry. The only advice I have is focus on you and your fiance and what you two want. Follow your heart and do whatever feels best to you. I feel like worrying about and trying to include other people under difficult circumstances only ends up being a distraction from whatever it is really matters to you and would make your day feel special. I really hope whatever you decide feels right, and that whenever and however you tie the knot, it is beautiful and special.

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Thank you so much

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Thanks but the purpose of this post wasn't to have happy brides rub in how great their small wedding day was. There are enough of those BAMs in this section. I'm glad your small wedding with your close people made you happy, but I don't share that sentiment at all and you telling me your small wedding was great in no way makes me feel any better that my small wedding was a disappointment. It's actually INFURIATING. It's salt in the wound. We originally planned a small wedding (60-80 people). 32 people would have been AMAZING. We had 12 at our mini-ceremony/elopement/wedding, including ourselves, our photographer, our officiants, and my mom's uninvited friend. My husband's sister couldn't come. Half his groomsmen couldn't come. People who actually wanted to celebrate with us that we desperately wanted there couldn't come. There were no hugs, no toasts, no speeches. I don't remember any laughter. The things I felt the most, aside from being in love with my husband, was feeling horribly alone. Horribly isolated. Surrounded by people who were supposed to be celebrating with me the most significant moment in my life, and they looked uncomfortable. Uncertain of what to do, or how to act, or what to say.

Why on earth would you come to a thread that is intended as a support for brides disappointed in their wedding and rub in how great yours was? I went from feeling some comfort in knowing I wasn't the only bride who felt so let down about their day to feeling really angry again. Your post is incredibly insensitive and hurtful.

View Quoted Comment Clearly or emotional about this. I was just trying to shed some light on the subject. Once again best of luck to you and your husband and I pray for better days for both of you.

View Quoted Comment I love this comment! Looking around the room and seeing all of our loved ones (masks and all!) was one of my favorite parts of our wedding. While half of our guest list was unable to attend, there was so much love and joy in the room!

View Quoted Comment It was a true statement. I will say this, as someone who is almost 40 years old and got married for the first time 15 years ago. I can say this much. 15 years ago I had a 300 person wedding. Albeit my ex-husband and I divorced, the people who came from my side I hardly heard from again. It was a very hectic day I did not even get to finish my meal that day. Fast forward 15 years and we have intimate wedding with those who could attend who loved us. We got to enjoy our meal and speak to everyone who was able to come. Those who could not attend sent their well wishes and we will all get together once this is all over. I’m simply saying that while the day might not of been what it was dream to be, sometimes the things we least expect could end up being great. It’s truly all about how you choose to view the situations you are dealt in life, good and bad.

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I've been married for more than six months and felt this way the entire time. I would love to feel happy about my wedding. I would love to magically flip a switch and have the pain go away. I've tried to reframe it in all the ways you can imagine, I've gone to therapy, I've talked and problem solved and tried to look ahead instead of behind, but it was important to me. My husband is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I've never been able to celebrate a darn thing in my life in a meaningful or significant way. The disappointment I feel about that is very real. One cannot change the past by pretending it happened differently that it did, and your experience at your wedding is not what I experienced at mine.

You got married last week and are still giddy. Great for you. But it doesn't do a darn thing for me.

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Good for you, but we weren't able to experience this, and your comment and the previous one mentioned are not in the spirit of this post.

I'm not a COVID bride, I got married last year but I can relate insofar to the disappointment of having plans change, people change, and people not be on the same page. We had a family emergency just prior to our big wedding and chose not to postpone and have a small one instead with re-configured finances.

Your feelings of disappointment are justified! Not only did you get the shock of not having your original concept be honored the people who you had around you didn't have the decency to *try* to make it a special day for you. That's not OK! Then to add insult to injury you're out all of this money if you don't follow through with a re-I-do. I'd be pissed. I'm so sorry you feel this way and there's no easy solution to heal those wounds. I'm sure you're also dealing with other pandemic stress like we all are in wanting to not put your life on hold. That in and of itself is enough to drive everyone crazy. You're completely right that having a child or being pregnant on your "big day" will take away from it a bit. Especially a small baby. I'm so sorry this happened to you.

Yes! I think it is totally valid for you to feel this way. While our minimony went as well as it could have and we enjoyed our day, I absolutely feel the same disappointment that you do! It was nothing like I've dreamed of since I was a little girl. I didn't get to wear my dress and none of my family were able to be there. The whole thing lasted maybe two hours. So I get your feelings on this and I'm so sorry you're feeling this way! Covid sucks. Can you do a redo (we are calling this Wedding 2.0) later in 2021 or in 2022?