You may remember that Mike proposed in June. Before COVID we had really talked about a lot of options: something on Nantucket, a destination wedding in Ireland, something fancy in NYC, something bigger but more local in the suburbs. We had an idea for a date in mind and had looked into venues and everything. And then COVID hit. In early May, we sat down and just kind of came to terms with the fact that the pandemic was going to dictate a lot of everyday life for a while, including weddings. I also had no clue when Mike was going to propose, so I put everything out of my head and figured everything would happen when it was supposed to happen.
Once Mike did propose, then we started to have more firm conversations about what our options were. We could potentially (I say potentially because my family lives in Florida so that adds a layer of travel complication) do something soon…. or we could wait until 2021 (which, in my opinion is still not a guarantee)… or we could wait until 2022. Honestly, we didn’t want to wait two years to get married just to have a party. Was this the wedding we each dreamed of? No. But it ended up being so perfect and so special. We had our immediate families there and that’s really what mattered to us. We both really missed our friends, but with a pandemic, everyone was understanding why we couldn’t risk it.
We actually played around with dates in September… August felt too soon. October seemed risky if there was a “second wave.” September was going to be tough too because my dad and grandma both celebrate Jewish holidays and we had teachers/administrators/students who would be at the wedding going back to school after Labor Day. So… basically September 5 was going to have to be the day.
Obviously everyone is at risk for coronavirus, but we also had some higher risk individuals including my grandma who just turned 93 on September 1! We asked everyone to lock down for two weeks, which was a huge ask, but everyone agreed. And my family, including my grandma, rented a massive SUV and drove up to be here. I’m going to keep this post just about the wedding, but this week I’ll backtrack and talk about the bridal shower and rehearsal dinner.
Once Mike and I landed on a date, we started to brainstorm what we wanted the actual day to look like. We looked into a few local places for the ceremony but we really couldn’t think about a better place than our own backyard. I cannot recommend doing this enough. A benefit of doing it in a backyard (either yours or a family members) is that it gives you a lot of flexibility. You’re not competing with other brides
