10 LESSONS CORONAVIRUS TAUGHT ME ABOUT (INTIMATE) WEDDINGS AND HOW TO PLAN DURING A PANDEMIC
I just want to start this off by stating that all photos in this post were taken with iPhones by the guests at our intimate wedding ceremony and reception. None of these are professional photos by any means. I feel like it is my responsibility as not only a photographer but also a bride during this global pandemic, to write this post. This is going to be a long one, so I’m sorry in advance.
As some of you may know, I just got married. This opened my eyes to wedding photography in a whole other light, since I was finally on the other side of the camera. I will definitely be blogging about those lessons too, but for now, this blog post is for the brides (and grooms!) planning a wedding during COVID-19 or just thinking about an intimate wedding, from a bride’s perspective (okay and some from the groom’s! haha).
My husband (!!!) and I got engaged a little under a year ago but we have been planning our wedding day for roughly 4 years now. We had a shared Pinterest board where we would put our ideas in categories for our day. Once engaged, we went back through the board and decided what we definitely wanted to do; I’m sure it was no surprise when I tell you that getting married during a global pandemic was not on that board.
Our first guest list had 387 people….our second around 300…and our “final” around 250. We got married two weeks ago, with 23 guests (including us 2), 1 dog, 1 brother on FaceTime, 1 officiant, 2 photographers, 1 videographer, 1 bartender, and 2 cooks. We went from 387 people to 30 people in eleven months.
Never in a million years did I think that we would be getting married during a world wide lockdown, in our backyards, without my brother there. But we did. We survived it, had an amazing day, and learned A LOT along the way.
My HUSBAND and I during our drive by parade! Read more to find out all about this parade!
My brothers. Never in a million years did I think we would be holding one on an iPad.
#1 TALK TO YOUR FIANCE AND FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO
Our wedding has always been scheduled for June 13th, so in March when the states started shutting down, we talked about what we should do. We decided to wait until the end of April to make a decision. April hit and once my bridal shower was cancelled and we were getting put on further lockdowns, I couldn’t take the stress anymore and once again we had another talk. Our families were very split, some wanted us to cancel and try again once things settled down, some wanted us to keep the 250 person wedding as planned and wait it out, and others wanted us to postpone the whole thing to the fall when things “should be open again.” We talked one on one and decided that we still wanted to get married on our day no matter what, but we did not want to put anyone in danger. We decided to pull the plug on the big wedding and create a list of the people that absolutely could not miss out on our day (this was HARD.)
#2 TALK TO YOUR VENDORS
We contacted the venue first to let them know we thought we wanted to do an intimate ceremony and reschedule the big wedding for next year. I won’t get deep into detail about that because honestly. We did not have a great experience with them from the beginning, but we were hoping because there was a pandemic, they would be a little better to work with. They pretty much told us that we should be fine to have a big 250 person ceremony AND reception and that we shouldn’t worry about it because “no one will come to our little town to see if we’re having a big event.” Literally within days I saw on their social media that they were closed to the public due to the pandemic. Again I reached out and told them we wanted to have an intimate ceremony there and have the reception in 2021. She finally agreed and we booked and confirmed our 2021 date. Fast forward to not even a week later, I get an email from them stating they double booked our 2021 date and decided to give it to the other couple. I. WAS. FURIOUS. But we decided to still have our intimate wedding there anyways. That was until THREE WEEKS before our wedding, when I contacted again, asking to confirm that we were still good to have our 25 person ceremony and dinner there, and she told me “we have to wait until it’s closer to decide.” At this point, I was over it, my fiance was over it, and we flat out cancelled this venue (and had to fight for our money back).
Luckily our house is two houses away from my husbands parents house, so we were able to use the back yards of all three houses for our ceremony and mini reception!
When we decided that we wanted to have the intimate ceremony on our scheduled date, but have a big reception next year, I reached out to all of our vendors; photographer, DJ, etc, to see about changing to next year's date and to discuss options to have them come to this year as well. Our vendors were amazing. They all were 100% fine with rescheduling to next year (except one who was already booked) and even offered different plans and/or packages for this year.
#3 TALK TO YOUR BRIDAL PARTY AND GUESTS
I was very open with my bridal party. They knew our plans as soon as we knew our plans. Unfortunately the bridal shower, bachelor party and bachelorette party were all cancelled, but our tribe still did everything they could to make us feel special (and they’re even planning for parties after corona ends!).
Ask them if they feel safe attending and how you can make them feel comfortable coming. But do not pressure them. We told each of our members that we would understand if they did not feel comfortable attending, especially if they have at risk family members or are at risk themselves. Fortunately for us, our friends and family were comfortable coming; but we still got tested and had sanitizers on hand.
#4 REALIZE YOU MAY HAVE TO CHANGE SOME THINGS AROUND AND/OR DIY SOME THINGS
Unfortunately my seamstress was unable to open up at all. Which meant that I had to find someone else who was willing to do it during quarantine. I was able to go to a local dry cleaners and they altered my dress for me! (Tip: If you’re going to have a party next year and wear it again, only get the alterations tacked so that nothing is permanent for next year)
Luckily for me, we decided early on to get wood bouquets and all of our centerpieces/decor was already delivered. However, we did DIY a lot of things. Signs, boutineers, a boxwood wall to get married in front of, place cards, etc. We ended up DIY-ing up until the morning of.
Our ENTIRE plan changed. We went from getting married at a golf course and having a ballroom look wedding, to getting married in our backyard, and eating/dancing/drinking around a pool. As much as it feels like it may suck, you have to realized you may have to change your plans around.
The local dry cleaner transformed this dress! It had 6 straps added and a train over 3 feet long cut off. Also those are wooden flowers.
#5 BE PREPARED TO MAKE SOME PEOPLE MAD
We both have HUGE families, so of course we were very nervous to tell pretty much everyone that they would not be coming to our wedding ceremony. Of course we didn’t want this to happen and we were only trying to look out for the health of everyone, but sometimes people take it personally. It was hard enough with all the cuts we had to make originally, but now we were literally telling my grandma, our aunts/uncles, close cousins, and some best friends that we were not able to let them come. Eventually mostly everyone understands, but there will always be those few that don’t.
We had many people upset and saying that maybe we should just reschedule the whole thing for 2021 when everyone could come. But that’s not what we wanted. You have to be sure that you stick to your guns. If you and your fiance are happy with your plans, that's really all that matters.
#6 AT THIS POINT, THERE ARE NO RULES
For us, EVERYTHING is backwards. We got married 6/13/2020, my new bridal shower date is 7/26/2020 (my husband is going on a mini bachelor party that weekend), my new bachelorette party date is 5/15/2021 (his is TBD), and our reception is 6/12/2021. COMPLETELY backwards. And if people don’t like it, *shrugging emoji*.
We didn’t spend the night before our wedding apart. We had garbage plates for our rehearsal dinner, we (okay, my bridesmaids and myself) jumped in the pool the night of the wedding.
As long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, do whatever makes you happy. That was definitely our motto at the end of it all.
#7 ***PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE IN MY OPINION*** YOUR FEELINGS ARE IMPORTANT AND THEY MATTER
Being a bride is hard, especially when people are super quick to throw around the bridezilla word. I tried SO hard to keep my cool, be a bridechilla and to make things easy on everyone. I didn’t want to tell anyone how upset I was because others were dealing with the pandemic and how it impacted their lives too; I always told myself, “there are bigger issues than just this wedding.”
Until the month before the wedding, my husband was the only person I had panic attacks in front of, cried to, yelled to (not at), and just lost my cool in front of. Everything we worked so hard to plan was quickly going down the drain. All the money we spent and time we put in, didn’t seem to matter to this virus (that obviously wasn’t attacking my wedding intentionally, but that's how it felt).
I was devastated the night we cancelled our London and Paris honeymoon, when we made the decision and postponed the big wedding, when I sat in quarantine during my bridal shower. I didn’t feel like a bride (and actually didn’t until 3 days before the wedding), and it sucked. I was mad that we were getting married in ours, our neighbors, and my in-law’s back yards and not at the place we originally wanted. I was mad that my friends and family couldn’t be there. I was mad that EVERYTHING I came up with felt tacky.
I threw my phone and cried into the arms of my step dad, mom, and husband, when I saw the article that said social distancing would continue until the day of our wedding.
I was a mix between jealous, mad, and sad thinking about my family and friends that have been able to have all the wedding festivities and wedding of their dreams. I can’t count the number of times I threw myself a pity party and made my husband attend it with me. “Why does everything I try to do fail?” “Why did ___ get it but I can’t?” “What makes me not good enough to deserve this?” “Why are people so mean to me and not understand why I’m upset and/or jealous?” “Why couldn’t we have gotten married last year?” The list goes on and on.
I cried for nights (and even the night before the wedding) at the fact that my brother, who is in the Air Force, was not allowed to leave his base and come to the wedding. This was a BIG deal to me. He told me there was a possibility of him not coming, and my mom told me he wouldn’t be about a month before, but I just kept lying to myself and telling myself that he would surprise me and show up just like they do on those youtube videos. My coworkers even surprised me with a bridal shower and for a split second, I thought they were surprising me with him. Again, I thought he would show up with my family for rehearsal. When my mom facetimed him in, is when it really seemed real that he wasn’t there. I would have little cries throughout the days/nights because he said he wasn’t going to be able to come, but once everyone left rehearsal and we were laying in bed, that’s when the real mental breakdown happened. It sucked. But my feelings were valid.
With this, he did “attend” the ceremony and even some of the photos, he was just on an ipad instead of physically there.
I don’t care what ANYONE tells you, your feelings are important and you should be able to express them however and whenever you want without being called a bridezilla, control freak, pain in the a$$ or any other things people will say.
My brother watching from FaceTime.
#8 DON'T SETTLE BUT BE OPEN TO OTHER OPTIONS TOO AND LAST MINUTE CHANGES CAN BE A BLESSING
During our originally planned wedding, I wanted a videographer and he did not. We played with our budget and realized that we probably shouldn’t get one, since I was VERY picky with my photographer and didn’t care how much it would cost me as long as I loved the photographer and their work. From the beginning, the photographer was my #1 “I will not budge on this” item. His was the food. Haha. Once we went down to 25 people and my brother, our friends, and 99% of our family couldn’t attend, we decided to hire a videographer. Many people suggested we live stream the ceremony. But after discussing it together, we decided that if we were going to have an intimate ceremony, we wanted it intimate, we didn’t want people watching online and that we would share our video with them after.
I went back and forth on whether we should have a parade or not. He didn’t care either way, he thought it would be fun, but wasn’t necessary if I didn’t like it. I was riding the fence on “that’s a great idea” and “that’s super tacky.” Part of me wanted to do it because then we could see some people (from a distance) and they could see us dressed up. The other part thought it would be a waste of time and lame. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of seeing people drive by, so we set up a private facebook event and added those who were invited to the wedding. It was an amazing turnout; super fun; honestly one of the highlights of the whole day; AND some of our favorite photos.
The parade was one of our best decisions!!
When we realized we would be celebrating around an inground pool, we decided that we wanted the huge white balloons to fancy it up a little bit. This was definitely not a necessity, but I thought it would give us that elegance that it needed. Then we found out they were going to be $8-10 A BALLOON to fill in helium (we had already purchased the balloons and just needed them filled!). We decided to cut back a little; instead of 20, we would only do 10. We are SO glad we decided to have these as it really did add that little splash (haha) of elegance.
Amazon 36 inch balloons. Held down by hand weights hahaha.
Once we realized there was no “real” place to dance, we decided not to have the first dance, father daughter dances (I had a dad and a step dad), or mother son dance. We figured we would leave those for 2021. But then the night before rehearsal, we had a change of heart and decided that we wanted to have our first dance anyways. We danced in the yard in front of our neighbors garden and it was beautiful.
First dance featuring our boxwood wall, confetti from the cannons, and my custom made cape!
Again, we told people we wanted it to be intimate, so no watching from facebook, facetime (other than my brother), etc. However right before the ceremony started, I noticed a few of my future aunts sneaking onto my in-laws patio to catch a few glimpses. I was THRILLED. I didn’t know how much I wanted to see them there until that moment. They quickly left before we could talk to them and got their cars ready for the parade. Later that night, once the partying really started, a few of them, and my husbands cousins showed up to party with us. It was amazing and I am SO glad they showed up. A few of our friends even showed up to party with us.
#9 INTIMATE WEDDINGS ARE FREAKING AMAZING
This was never our plan. As if I haven’t said that multiple times throughout this post.
I was sad we weren’t getting our original plan. But oh my goodness, looking back on it. It was amazing.
During rehearsal, our officiant (who is my husband's uncle) reminded us that “if things didn’t go as planned, that should be feeling normal to us at this point, and that this is definitely unique.”
He was 100% correct; during our ceremony, many things didn’t go as planned. Our dog started rolling around and groaning which sidetracked literally all of us and we all started laughing; a helicopter (mercy flight) went over our ceremony and landed (we live close to the hospital) right as I was handed my vows so we had to wait for what felt like an eternity; my wedding band barely fit because I was swollen...I had to SHOVE it on; and one of our confetti cannons didn’t go off.
BUT...having an intimate wedding took pressure off us. We didn’t have to make sure that we didn’t stutter during our vows, we could be emotional if we wanted to (as in, I definitely cried during my vows), we could make a fool of ourselves (which I definitely did while rapping The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with my friends).
Because it was a backyard wedding, unfortunately that meant that my husband, in-laws, step dad, and some of the groomsmen had to set up. This made things a little tight with time, so we were running about 15 minutes behind schedule (and also he forgot to fill our floating candle vases up with water….which no, no one noticed but me, but yes, I will harass him for until next year). Also I was super glad the guys were running behind because I had definitely put us about 15-20 minutes behind as well. Due to us running a little behind, we had to rearrange some things. Instead of doing photos right after the first dance and before the parade, we had to push dinner back a few minutes and do photos between the parade and cake cutting/dinner. This wouldn’t have been possible if we didn’t have such a small wedding.
We rented a truck to store all the patio furniture that we needed gone for wedding day!
We were able to celebrate with those who are super close to us. We have heard about how hard it is to be a bride and groom because you have to try to talk to EVERYONE and you have no time to party. Well since we only had our parents, siblings, and bridal party, it was so nice to just have fun with everyone and not stress about making sure we talked to 250 people. Looking at our photos, you can even tell how intimate and relaxing this wedding was.
Since there were only close family and friends, there was no need to edit out random plus ones from our photos! That was a big bonus for me! There’s nothing worse than getting a photo at a wedding (or really any event) with your best friends, and then realizing your second cousin's boyfriend of the week is in the background. Nope, no thanks.
Because our DJ couldn’t reschedule us for the date for our reception next year, we decided to have him there. Honestly, having all of our big vendors there this year was 100% worth it in our opinion. Our DJ was able to provide microphones (so really I probably could have talked over that helicopter! haha), he played our ceremony music, first dance song, made announcements for us, and also partied the night away with us. Once the dinner ended and the sun started to go down, that’s when the party really got started. The DJ got us all up on the deck and dancing. He played all of the songs people requested and made sure it felt like a real wedding reception. 100% amazing decision. We couldn’t have had that great of a reception (or ceremony to be honest) with just a playlist and speakers.
I could probably ramble on and on about how amazing intimate ceremonies/receptions are. Because we were pleasantly surprised at how much fun we had.
#10 THE LITTLE THINGS MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE
Like all weddings, the little details are truly the most memorable. Here is a list of the “little things” that I am so glad we did.
Snapchat filters and geofilters. We had them planned for the big celebration and once we changed locations, that was one of the first things I contacted to change. Everyone got a kick out of using them
Snapchat group story. I LOVED this idea. The morning of the wedding, my bridesmaid googled how to add people into a private snapchat story, which we immediately did. It was amazing because the next morning I screenshotted A TON of photos haha.
Place Cards. We almost didn’t do these because there were only 3 tables plus our own. But we wanted our bridal party and their significant others to be at one table as they were all of our friends. They also wrapped in our signs, making it like an overall theme.
Photos on the chairs. This was a surprise to nearly everyone. I thought it would have looked dumb only having 12 chairs set up for the ceremony. I just knew it would not create an aisle that I wanted. So we decided to literally creep on Facebook and get photos of those who were invited to our wedding ceremony, print them out, and tape them to the chairs. Not only did this make my aisle, but when we were standing up there, looking out, we could see all the faces of those who should have been there with us. This actually meant a lot to our guests too. Those who were there, were so excited to see their family members that couldn’t be there and those who weren’t able to come but saw our set up, knew that we did not forget about them on our day. It was definitely something special and I am SO glad we did it.
Confetti cannons. These were beautiful for the photos BUT terrible to pick up. 100% would still do it again. Also we got the biodegradable ones.
Letters. We asked our aunts and uncles to write us letters for us to read on the morning of the wedding (because we stayed the night together). We loved this as it felt like they were there with us. I was also surprised with a scrapbook of letters from each of my bridesmaids, my mom, and my husband. It was amazing and definitely something I will keep forever. (It had room to put our families letters in too!)
Something old, Something new, Something borrowed, Something blue. I still did this and I have no regrets. It made me feel like there was some type of normalcy with the wedding.
Invitations. Once we pulled the plug on our original venue, I was too salty to want our original invitations photographed. So I logged into the website we created them with and changed our time and location and ordered a pack of ten. 100% worth it.
Balloons for the pool. I’m mentioning this again because it made the world of difference. I was terrified it would feel like a cookout and it definitely did not.
Floor length tablecloths. Same reason ^
First look and all the typical photos. This made it feel like a wedding. It got us the pictures we wanted. And we have a chance to do it all over again next year. Maybe this just matters to me because I’m a photo freak.
Boxwood Wall. We originally were going to have this for a “photobooth” area at the golf course, but when the location changed, we decided to get married in front of it. We have had so many people say it was beautiful and how classy it made our backyards. We have even had people ask to rent it! It was also special because my husband and step dad made it together, which I think is pretty amazing.
The wall was 8ft x 8ft!
Something that means something to you both. We used grape soda cap pins. It is my favorite Disney movie and we used them in our engagement shoot. For the wedding, he wore his on his suit and I had mine on my bouquet.
Cape. I didn’t want a veil because I had a forehead headpiece. So I opted for a cool new trend, a cape. I got this custom made through Etsy, so that it would ombre from white to the teal that my girls were wearing. I did not wear this to the first look, so it still gave that little surprise as I was walking down the aisle.
Vows on acrylic. We always wanted to do this. But the pictures with them are super cute and we now have them framed in our house. ALSO they matched our signage.
Handmade boutonnieres. Another original plan. My husband didn’t want to wear a traditional flower, so instead we made them out of dice. This was special to him because him and all his groomsmen like to play games.
Matching T-Shirts. We got everyone matching t-shirts for after dinner. We wanted our guests to be able to relax, have fun, and also not ruin their outfits since we have to party again next year! We made shirts that said, “Wife of the party” with our hashtag, for me; “Life of the party” with the hashtag for him, and the “the party” for the rest of the guests. The colors depended on who you were. The bridesmaids got blue to match their dresses; groomsmen got grey to match the suits, and the rest got black. We also took a photo with us all wearing them and its one of my all time favorite photos.
INCLUDE YOUR PET! I don’t know why this is the last one because this was SOOO important to me. But if you are super close to your animal, I 1000000% recommend including them. My brother walked our dog down the aisle (both brothers were supposed to, but obviously my brother in the Air Force was unable to). They were also both in some of our bridal party photos. We bought our dog a custom made suit (Etsy) to almost match the groomsmen and he definitely stole the show.
Also, a very quick review of our vendors.
Cake- Cupcaked of Ellicottville. Annie and her team are AMAZING! We saved our big cake idea for next year, but she did amazing with creating something to still go with our theme. Not to mention, it tasted amazing and I’m drooling just writing this.
Photographer- Jaimie Ellis Photography. She was amazing. Was? IS! Jaimie has been nothing but a HUGE help to us since our first initial meeting. Her photos are amazing and she’s so fun to work with.
Videographer- Two Palm Films. We haven’t received our video yet (I mean we only got married 2 weeks ago!). But Ryan was amazing! Ryan and Sarah were so nice from our original emails with Sarah, to our calls with Ryan, to Ryan coming to the wedding and videoing EVERYTHING.
DJ- Mike Hendrix. I mean, he was the one that turned this into a party. 100% recommend.
Chairs and Tables- Cayas Canopies of Olean. AMAZING customer service and great quality.
Linens- Argentieri Brothers Inc. Super easy to work with and great quality.
Flowers- Our wood bouquets were from Pine and Petal Weddings. Our centerpiece flowers were from Ling's Moment. Pine and Petal Weddings blew my mind. They are amazing. The customer service was remarkable; they helped me pick what design I wanted, sent me dozens of photos, and did not ship out until I was in love with them. And did I mention they look SUPER real and are light!?
Rings- Reeds Jewelers (Not Reeds Jenss. Apparently there’s a difference haha). My husband custom made my rings through Reeds and they are AMAZING.
Photo by Bre Palumbo Photography
If you need specifics on anything else, let me know and I will be so glad to help you!
I hope this blog post helps those who are dealing with this pandemic affecting their wedding or just those who are considering an intimate wedding.
My heart is with you all during this crazy time!
-B