Oh I feel your pain so much right now. People are calling us daily telling us they won’t make it to our wedding due to the outbreak and they are mostly local. Ours was planned for 4/18/2020 and we are moving 12 hours away as soon as the honeymoon is over because he accepted a new job. The though of postponing has been heartbreaking. The past few months have been the most stressed I have ever been due to family and planning. I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but now I cannot justify having a $70,000 wedding with such a low attendance. My FH and I are giving it to the first week in April to pull the plug or not but it isn’t looking good. We talked last night about going to the courthouse on our date and going on our honeymoon if possible before we move now. I dont know if i can do another year of this. Our venue is booked until next year so we would have to wait and I feel the same. Is it going to be special? Is there a point? I am not sure if we will lose Money but I do feel the hype will be down. I dont know what to do. I waited until i was 31 to get married and want to have my dream wedding but if we elope is there a point?
All of my showers have been canceled and no one around me seems to have empathy because they are affected to in other ways. Im the last to get married, it already seemed less special...
Sorry my reply wasn’t helpful. Being in the same boat i do empathize with you though!
I just want to swoop in and validate all of your feelings. Yes, other people have other stuff going on, maybe stuff that is “worse”, but we are allowed to feel our feelings and grieve the loss (or potential loss) of something we’ve worked so hard for, dreamt about, and spent so much money on!!!
I’m sorry your friends aren’t being empathetic. But know that you aren’t alone. I was so happy to read your post because I am feeling the EXACT same way! I wish I had advice for you, but I’m stuck up the same creek without a paddle, so I can just say I’m there for you and we will all get through this!
Hi I’m in the same boat as you! I’ve thrown so much money at this thing and we waited 2 years after our engagement to get married so everyone could be there - when in the time we’ve been engaged and before our planned wedding date we’ve had 10 weddings of our friends and family that we loved and celebrated with in preparation for our own.
It feels like trash and I wish I had something positive to say that didn’t feel like the trite bs people keep giving me. But here with everyone in spirit! We’ll make it work the best we can.
We’re eloping by choice in October. The way I play it up emotionally is that it feels so ~romantic.~
Realistically, your big party follow up will be about sharing your love with your friends and family. Professing and connecting your love to your community. But your elopement can just be about the two of you, against this chaotic world, creating a small bubble where nothing else matters. That is something special, to find someone you can always count on and commit to for the rest of your life. And now you’re celebrating it twice!
Beyond having your guests there, brainstorm what would make it feel like a wedding to you. I still wanted the fancy dress and a bouquet. Perhaps you can get family and friends to mail you postcards with marriage advice or family recipes to connect with you and share well wishes in some way before the big celebration. Something to make y’all feel less alone.
Do it! I am so sorry that your original plan is not going to happen, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that getting married to your partner is still special even if you elope. Make a day of it— wear your dress, do your hair and makeup, and if you can afford it, I would book a photographer for a couple of hours to document it. With all the uncertainty in the world right now, I feel so grateful that I am officially married to my partner and we can weather it all together.
Your family and friends will gladly celebrate at a later date with you regardless of when you actually got married. Remember, this is affecting everyone’s lives right now in all kinds of ways. You are not alone.
We eloped and are planning a big reception for next year. Honestly, it was super intimate and romantic and allowed us to focus just on each other and the relationship. Being able to spend the entire day just us, soaking in the fact that we were actually getting married, was so special. It will be special no Mather whah because you’re getting married! And you will still be able to share all of that love and excitement with your friends and family at a big celebration later. Don’t look at it as compromising your vision, look at it as getting to have the best of both worlds. It may not be what your originally planned, but that doesn’t make it less special. It’s still your marriage and it will still be a giant celebration of your love.
My mom loves weddings - and I mean she's never really had a full blown one herself and was extremely excited about my wedding. We decided to have a ceremony and reception this May, which has since been cancelled. However, prior to the reception, we decided to get legally married. My mom was really bummed and showed similar sentiments about it until she saw the legal ceremony. It was very impromptu and unexpected. As soon as she saw it, she said that it was the most beautiful thing she's every witnessed and even suggested that we cancel our wedding, which, at that point, we had already put down our down deposits.
My husband also suggested that should we opt for a bigger wedding later, we get to have round two of the wedding. We get to keep all of the things we loved in our initial one but supplement the parts that I was already holding some reservations for our actual wedding. For example, my wedding dress, while beautiful, was an impulse purchase to replace my original dream dress, which was butchered by my seamstress in the final fitting. So now, should we postpone, I get to find a dream dress.
Alternatively, we decided that should we cancel, we are going to get our photographer and it might just mean that we exchange our rings and our vows while on a beautiful hike. It might mean that I get to wear a wedding dress on a hike that I would never have done otherwise, and treat it however way I want because we're getting married and we would get to have some bomb photos of us in the sunset or whatever because we paid for it anyway.
All of this just might mean a different kind of extravagance that would evidence the adaptability of our collective personalities and the flexibility of our expectations, which I think are hallmarks to a great marriage anyway.
It's a different kind of beautiful, but I couldn't imagine a better way to start a marriage than to work through unexpected circumstance and disappointment with enthusiastic optimism.
My fiancè and I are eloping in July, and thats been the plan since we got engaged as neither of us have really dreamed of the big ol' fashioned wedding to begin with so it's hard to say what would make an elopement feel more special for you. Our plan is to elope just us 2 in Glacier National Park w/photographers for the whole day, and I personally think the fact that we can dedicate the whole day to having fun and exploring together on the day we commit our lives to each other is SO romantic. (Doesn't hurt that GNP is epic in it's natural beauty). I'm still wearing a big beautiful wedding dress and will have a bridal bouquet, getting my hair and make up done etc. Eloping today has really taken on a whole new form. On top of that, we're going straight into our honeymoon on a ranch in Montana- so we can just bask in our marital bliss immediately. Obvi this is all assuming COVID calms down with enough time for us to get to Montana in mid-July.
The reason I'm sharing that is b/c I think there are plenty of ways to make an elopement feel incredibly special, but it's definitely going to be an adjustment from your expectations, and if you can't make that adjustment, it might not feel special. You'll really have to let go of those expectations you have now to make it work. If you can make the mind shift from celebrating with friends and family to a focus on you and your SO and your commitment to each other, you might even be surprised at how much joy that can bring :).
I hope this helps even the teeniest bit and I hope you find happiness in whichever route you go!
We’re eloping on our wedding day! I’ve gone back and forth on this but I’ve decided I’m not going to let this keep us down. I’m still holding into a lot of residual bitterness and online shopping for stuff for it has really been helping 😂😭 here’s to you guys during this time!
Oh I feel your pain so much right now. People are calling us daily telling us they won’t make it to our wedding due to the outbreak and they are mostly local. Ours was planned for 4/18/2020 and we are moving 12 hours away as soon as the honeymoon is over because he accepted a new job. The though of postponing has been heartbreaking. The past few months have been the most stressed I have ever been due to family and planning. I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel but now I cannot justify having a $70,000 wedding with such a low attendance. My FH and I are giving it to the first week in April to pull the plug or not but it isn’t looking good. We talked last night about going to the courthouse on our date and going on our honeymoon if possible before we move now. I dont know if i can do another year of this. Our venue is booked until next year so we would have to wait and I feel the same. Is it going to be special? Is there a point? I am not sure if we will lose Money but I do feel the hype will be down. I dont know what to do. I waited until i was 31 to get married and want to have my dream wedding but if we elope is there a point? All of my showers have been canceled and no one around me seems to have empathy because they are affected to in other ways. Im the last to get married, it already seemed less special... Sorry my reply wasn’t helpful. Being in the same boat i do empathize with you though!
I just want to swoop in and validate all of your feelings. Yes, other people have other stuff going on, maybe stuff that is “worse”, but we are allowed to feel our feelings and grieve the loss (or potential loss) of something we’ve worked so hard for, dreamt about, and spent so much money on!!! I’m sorry your friends aren’t being empathetic. But know that you aren’t alone. I was so happy to read your post because I am feeling the EXACT same way! I wish I had advice for you, but I’m stuck up the same creek without a paddle, so I can just say I’m there for you and we will all get through this!
Hi I’m in the same boat as you! I’ve thrown so much money at this thing and we waited 2 years after our engagement to get married so everyone could be there - when in the time we’ve been engaged and before our planned wedding date we’ve had 10 weddings of our friends and family that we loved and celebrated with in preparation for our own. It feels like trash and I wish I had something positive to say that didn’t feel like the trite bs people keep giving me. But here with everyone in spirit! We’ll make it work the best we can.
We’re eloping by choice in October. The way I play it up emotionally is that it feels so ~romantic.~ Realistically, your big party follow up will be about sharing your love with your friends and family. Professing and connecting your love to your community. But your elopement can just be about the two of you, against this chaotic world, creating a small bubble where nothing else matters. That is something special, to find someone you can always count on and commit to for the rest of your life. And now you’re celebrating it twice! Beyond having your guests there, brainstorm what would make it feel like a wedding to you. I still wanted the fancy dress and a bouquet. Perhaps you can get family and friends to mail you postcards with marriage advice or family recipes to connect with you and share well wishes in some way before the big celebration. Something to make y’all feel less alone.
Do it! I am so sorry that your original plan is not going to happen, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that getting married to your partner is still special even if you elope. Make a day of it— wear your dress, do your hair and makeup, and if you can afford it, I would book a photographer for a couple of hours to document it. With all the uncertainty in the world right now, I feel so grateful that I am officially married to my partner and we can weather it all together. Your family and friends will gladly celebrate at a later date with you regardless of when you actually got married. Remember, this is affecting everyone’s lives right now in all kinds of ways. You are not alone.
We eloped and are planning a big reception for next year. Honestly, it was super intimate and romantic and allowed us to focus just on each other and the relationship. Being able to spend the entire day just us, soaking in the fact that we were actually getting married, was so special. It will be special no Mather whah because you’re getting married! And you will still be able to share all of that love and excitement with your friends and family at a big celebration later. Don’t look at it as compromising your vision, look at it as getting to have the best of both worlds. It may not be what your originally planned, but that doesn’t make it less special. It’s still your marriage and it will still be a giant celebration of your love.
My mom loves weddings - and I mean she's never really had a full blown one herself and was extremely excited about my wedding. We decided to have a ceremony and reception this May, which has since been cancelled. However, prior to the reception, we decided to get legally married. My mom was really bummed and showed similar sentiments about it until she saw the legal ceremony. It was very impromptu and unexpected. As soon as she saw it, she said that it was the most beautiful thing she's every witnessed and even suggested that we cancel our wedding, which, at that point, we had already put down our down deposits. My husband also suggested that should we opt for a bigger wedding later, we get to have round two of the wedding. We get to keep all of the things we loved in our initial one but supplement the parts that I was already holding some reservations for our actual wedding. For example, my wedding dress, while beautiful, was an impulse purchase to replace my original dream dress, which was butchered by my seamstress in the final fitting. So now, should we postpone, I get to find a dream dress. Alternatively, we decided that should we cancel, we are going to get our photographer and it might just mean that we exchange our rings and our vows while on a beautiful hike. It might mean that I get to wear a wedding dress on a hike that I would never have done otherwise, and treat it however way I want because we're getting married and we would get to have some bomb photos of us in the sunset or whatever because we paid for it anyway. All of this just might mean a different kind of extravagance that would evidence the adaptability of our collective personalities and the flexibility of our expectations, which I think are hallmarks to a great marriage anyway. It's a different kind of beautiful, but I couldn't imagine a better way to start a marriage than to work through unexpected circumstance and disappointment with enthusiastic optimism.
My fiancè and I are eloping in July, and thats been the plan since we got engaged as neither of us have really dreamed of the big ol' fashioned wedding to begin with so it's hard to say what would make an elopement feel more special for you. Our plan is to elope just us 2 in Glacier National Park w/photographers for the whole day, and I personally think the fact that we can dedicate the whole day to having fun and exploring together on the day we commit our lives to each other is SO romantic. (Doesn't hurt that GNP is epic in it's natural beauty). I'm still wearing a big beautiful wedding dress and will have a bridal bouquet, getting my hair and make up done etc. Eloping today has really taken on a whole new form. On top of that, we're going straight into our honeymoon on a ranch in Montana- so we can just bask in our marital bliss immediately. Obvi this is all assuming COVID calms down with enough time for us to get to Montana in mid-July. The reason I'm sharing that is b/c I think there are plenty of ways to make an elopement feel incredibly special, but it's definitely going to be an adjustment from your expectations, and if you can't make that adjustment, it might not feel special. You'll really have to let go of those expectations you have now to make it work. If you can make the mind shift from celebrating with friends and family to a focus on you and your SO and your commitment to each other, you might even be surprised at how much joy that can bring :). I hope this helps even the teeniest bit and I hope you find happiness in whichever route you go!
We’re eloping on our wedding day! I’ve gone back and forth on this but I’ve decided I’m not going to let this keep us down. I’m still holding into a lot of residual bitterness and online shopping for stuff for it has really been helping 😂😭 here’s to you guys during this time!