Sarah Lockwood and Andrew Ray donned hand-sewn masks for their April 4 backyard ceremony. (Photo by Aurelia Studios)
I’m not going to pretend there weren’t tears when we first realized we had to reschedule our 130-person wedding that I had planned — and planned — for months. But I’m grateful for the intimate family wedding that we were able to have despite the global pandemic.
Our original wedding date was April 4, 2020. The countdown had hit the 30-day mark when we began to see the coronavirus as a threat. The questions began to eat us up: “Can we just tie wedding bows to hand sanitizer dispensers and position them throughout the reception? Can we put our grandparents in a giant protective bubble? What if we go ahead with our wedding, but it gets someone sick? What if we reschedule, but we lose a lot of our parents’ money?”
By now, these questions seem silly, but at the time, we didn’t know just how widespread the pandemic would be. It wasn’t even called a “pandemic” yet. Just as we were starting to think that it would be irresponsible to forge ahead, Gov. Ralph Northam banned gatherings of more than 100 people (he later banned gatherings of more than 10). There was some relief in the decision being made for us — but there were also many tears. Suddenly, all of my late nights of planning and emails back and forth with vendors were not going to pay off. This big day we’d been waiting for was taken out of our sightline.
Luckily, we were in the early wave of couples rescheduling, and our venue, Historic Jasmine Plantation, waived the change-of-date fee if we rescheduled within 2020. We selected a Sunday in September, which increased the chances of our vendors being available. We never would have selected a Sunday as our original date, but it’s amazing what priorities fell away this second time around.
When all of our vendors were available on our new date, it felt like a miracle. When they all graciously rescheduled without any additional fees, I thought I’d gone to heaven. But I still felt a sucker punch to the stomach when the countdown on my phone shifted from 18 days to 194.
I knew that my “loss” was nothing compared to the loss of life around the world and the strength required by front-line health workers. I knew it was just a big party, and that the health and safety of our loved ones were so much more important.
But it still hurt. I found comfort in other brides. I had joined a Facebook group for Richmond brides months before our originally scheduled wedding. Prior to the virus, the group sold used wedding decor and shared vendor recommendations. Once the coronavirus hit, the threads were filled with rescheduling plans.
Brook Ballard and Sovanna Sok opted for an intimate mountain-top wedding on April 10. (Photo by John Buller, J. Ellis Photography)
“We kept our date and got married without our families,” says Sovanna Sok, who tied the knot with Brook Ballard on April 10. While this couple from the Fan is looking forward to celebrating with family when it’s safe, in the meantime they were able to share a GoPro video with loved ones of their intimate, scenic mountain-top wedding.
“It was a different kind of special, and I love knowing that I’m married to my best friend now,” Sok says. “I am so happy with our decision to get married. I want to encourage other brides to do what will make them happy. It’s not a normal time, and we just need to uplift each other.”
While Sok wore her rehearsal-dinner dress for this elopement and is saving her wedding dress for her rescheduled family wedding, others saw an opportunity to wear their gown more than once.
Elizabeth Robinson and Tristan DeWitt at their “mini ceremony” on May 2 (Photo by Holly Pritchard Photography)
“I plan to wear my dress for both because I love it so much, so why not wear it twice?” says Elizabeth Robinson. The Chesterfield bride and her fiancé, Tristan DeWitt, decided to have a “mini ceremony” May 2 and rescheduled their bigger party for September.
Like most brides sharing their plans on the Facebook group, I knew that my fiancé, Andrew, and I still wanted to legally tie the knot on April 4. The new house we’d just closed on felt like the perfect venue for an intimate wedding. We talked to our parents and siblings about their comfort level with a small outdoor gathering to quickly exchange vows while practicing social distancing. They were in. In fact, they took the planning responsibility away from us.
Except for donning the masks that my grandmother had sewn in our wedding colors, we were able to forget about the-virus-that-must-not-be-named for just a few hours.
For their quick mobilization and loving support, I am eternally grateful. My brother married us while we were surrounded by our immediate family — stationed 6 feet apart from each other. I don’t think there was a dry eye among those in attendance. It felt special and beautiful and intimate. Except for donning the masks that my grandmother had sewn in our wedding colors, we were able to forget about the-virus-that-must-not-be-named for just a few hours.
I’m grateful that as long as we live in this house, we’ll know what a special thing happened on our back porch. I’m grateful for our family who supported us from afar and in the yard that day. I’m grateful that our dog Merlin got to attend the wedding (since it was out of the question with our original plans). And (knock-on-wood-cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-cry) I’m grateful I’ll get to wear my dress twice.
We danced our first dance to Starship’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.” Because really — though, please universe, do not take this as a challenge — what can stop us? We still wanted to tie the knot after weeks of quarantining in a 1,000-square-foot apartment, and despite the fear and panic in the world around us, we looked into each other’s eyes and said “I do” with confidence and hope and joy.
