How to Celebrate Your Original Wedding Date if You’ve Postponed Due to COVID-19
Even if you’ve had to adjust the timing of your wedding, your original wedding date is still a milestone worth celebrating. Here’s how to mark the day while staying safe at home.
Couples across the world are facing the realities of wedding postponement amid COVID-19, but what happens when your original wedding date rolls around? While feeling gratitude for health and safety is always a given, it’s also normal to experience a wide range of emotions on the date you’d waited so long to celebrate. Whether you feel disappointed, hopeful, anxious, or all of the above, your original wedding date can still be an incredibly memorable occasion.
If your wedding is postponed due to COVID-19, we’re sharing seven different ways to spend the original date, all from the comfort of your own home.
Plan the ultimate date night.
If your original wedding date occurs while sheltering in place, don’t let that stop you from embarking on the best date night ever. Set the scene with an incredible home-cooked meal, some signature cocktails, a great playlist, and a few sentimental moments for good measure. Go down memory lane by recreating your first date or take the time to pull out old photos, letters, and mementos of your relationship. While it’s not what you originally planned, use this date as an opportunity to remind yourselves why you fell in love in the first place.
Host a virtual party with friends.
You might be practicing social distancing, but it’s still important to connect with the ones you love most. Rally your closest friends or family in a video call on your original wedding date for a virtual celebration, despite the changed circumstances. You can spend the call catching up with everyone, sharing a laugh over quarantine stories, giving those wedding toasts a trial-run, and raising a glass to love.
Take an online dance lesson.
If you’ve ever thought about surprising your friends and family with a choreographed first dance, now is the time to do it. Take this opportunity to schedule an online dance lesson or seek out a helpful Youtube video to spend the day dancing alongside your favorite person. Who knows — you might even look back on this day as one of your favorite memories together ever.
Schedule a wedding movie marathon.
For some couples, a postponed wedding date will bring on a lot of emotion, and they’ll feel more like lying on the sofa than dancing in their living room. Know that it’s ok to be sad, and allow yourself space to wallow if you need to wallow amidst these extraordinary circumstances. If you and your soon-to-be fall into that category, think about indulging in a day-long movie marathon with an upbeat wedding theme. Look to fan-favorites like Father of the Bride, Wedding Crashers, The Wedding Singer, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Mamma Mia!, just to name a few. Sometimes a good laugh-slash-cry is all you need for a new outlook.
Spend the day wedding planning.
Plan A may be out the window, but that doesn’t mean you can’t look ahead on what’s to come. For couples who love tackling a to-do list, spending your original date wedding planning can be a fun and even therapeutic approach. Just think of it as a chance to extend your fiancé status even longer. Clear the schedule and devote the date to updating your wedding website, touching base with vendors, developing a music playlist, or planning your honeymoon from afar. If you’re feeling extra ambitious, revisit your wedding budget and talk numbers now that you’ve gained some additional time to save!
Write your vows together.
You’ve probably got some extra time on your hands, so take your original wedding date to write, rewrite, or perfect your wedding vows together. Set aside some time with no distractions to think about what you’d like to promise and pledge to one another, and how to express those ideas directly from the heart. Talk about if you’d like to go more serious or lighthearted, or any traditions you’d like to incorporate. While this day may look vastly different than you once thought, it can also be a really meaningful experience you’ll look back on with fondness.
Plan a minimony.
If you want to be married, like, yesterday, consider planning a minimony. What’s a minimony, you may ask? Think a small ceremony with just you and your partner, as well as your officiant and a few loved ones in attendance via video conference. In some states, you can legally marry over Zoom during this time of social distancing, or you can host a more symbolic ceremony, saving your legal wedding for a later date. You can even enlist your vendors to participate—your officiant to perform the proceedings, your photographer to take some photos from a safe distance, and more.
