5 ways the COVID pandemic totally changed the wedding game
Remember 2020? When COVID spread across the world and the UK was put into lockdown? We were due to get married in September of that year, and I remember thinking in March that September was AGES away so we’d be completely fine. HA! 🙄
Well fast forward two years, vaccines have been made and restrictions are no longer in place. Not everyone waited, and we could have had a very tiny ceremony in 2020, and a slightly bigger but still very small (with no dancing) wedding in 2021, but we chose to wait.
In these two years a lot of things changed about our wedding, and in several ways in became very different to the original celebration we would have had. From the guest list, to favours, to venues even, and incorporating plan As, Bs, and Cs for cutting down and changing things if needed for restrictions.
Waiting was stressful and seeing our would have been wedding days go by was a little sad, but it was so worth the wait and there were definitely some silver linings!
Here are a few that that we experienced or that we could have considered:
1. The little details
When you’re given (wanted or not) an extra two years to plan your wedding, it makes sense that you’ll have a bit more time to plan. We certainly didn’t spend a lot of the extra two years planning, but it did give us freedom to explore different things that we wanted to include.
Cake 🍰
Flowers 🌸
Favours ✨
Photo wall 📸
Shoes 👞
2. More time to save
More time meant more savings, or maybe for some that might be a change in financial position.
We changed our Mehndi venue. We were scammed by the first one so had to! But it had also been planned on a budget. Needing to find a new venue, but having a larger budget meant the Mehndi felt more on par with the western day.
Many people bought second outfits - a combo of preference changing or just having a little extra cash to get that second dress for the reception.
3. Reworking the guest list
This one felt harsh in moments, but to be honest COVID and lockdown showed us who we kept in touch with and who was important in our lives.
We ended up having people at our wedding who we knew were accepting and there to celebrate, not there out of duty.
Thinking back to some of the people who we would have felt obligated to invite back in 2020 (and even 2021) makes it a true silver lining that we delayed.
Never feel pressured to invite everyone who you sent STDs for your original wedding day for.
4. Weekends are out!
COVID created a new found love for the weekday wedding.
Suppliers and venues were swamped with rearranged dates and working on such a backlog that it was difficult for anyone to get a weekend day, and everyone had to branch out their preferences if they wanted to get married before the next decade (slight exaggeration but you get the gist).
It also meant a bunch of people who were originally set on a Saturday were open to different days, which probably saved a tonne of money and still an equally awesome day!
5. Honeymoon destinations
Staycations, mini moons, delayed honeymoons, COVID saw a change in our attitudes towards travel.
People who didn’t delay wouldn’t have been able to honeymoon abroad, so either delayed the honeymoon, did a staycation, or went for a mini moon soon after the wedding and had their honeymoon at a later date.
This one also benefited from the additional saving time.
Overall, COVID sucked and was a surreal, scary, and difficult time for most people. But there’s some real little positives we can take out of the difficult times, some that may have lasting effects on things like the wedding industry, and others that had small impacts on individual weddings! In the end, our wedding day was beautiful and just right, we wouldn’t have had it any other way 💒💖
Photography by Mini & Me Photography and Pinky Promise Photography 📸
