In a weird twist of events for this year, we’re getting married! Finally! If you’re new around here, Ryan and I were scheduled to get married May 2020, but we postponed due to Covid-19. The date we picked is coming up soon, and we’ve decided to move ahead with the wedding… after a few changes that is.
So we picked this rescheduled date last year in March, before we realized that everything around us was about to change. At the time, we even thought by the summer that COVID would be a thing of the past and that we could have the wedding then. This was clearly not the case and I’m very thankful to my future sister-in-law for advising us to be safe and push it a year. When picking the date, it was the only open one our venue had for 2021. We had already put down a fair amount of money to the venue and vendors, so canceling all together was just not an option for us. So we’re adapting!
Our original invite list was 190 people. I didn’t even realize we knew that many people until making the list, and I’m still shocked by it. While New York State is allowing weddings up to 150 people right now (500 if they’re outside– WTF?!), it’s not something either of us feel remotely comfortable with. I’m still struggling with PTSD after what happened in the city last spring, and am working on being comfortable being outside my apartment.
So we’re pivoting to part micro-wedding, and part zoom. We have so many loved ones that we’d like to celebrate with, that having a hybrid celebration was the best way to safely include everyone. Aside from safety concerns, we also don’t want a large in person gathering, considering we’ve barely had any human contact within the past year. Life is going to be awkward for a while and that’s fineeeee.
For those who will be with us in person, we’re taking all the steps to ensure that we can celebrate safely:
1. Everyone in person will be vaccinated! This is the biggest factor for us being able to move forward with the event at all. PS if you aren’t vaccinated yet, NY state just opened the appointments to those 16+ (book your appointment here).
2. The ceremony will be outside, socially distanced, and masks will be worn. I even have a cute mask DIY coming next week that’s going to be so good!
3. We have approval from the NY health department and protocols in place to keep everyone safe including temperature checks and contract tracing. Our venue is following all steps to make sure guests will be safe and I’m so thankful for that.
So that’s the update! We have less than a month to go at this point, so I’ll start sharing more behind the scenes (most likely over on Instagram stories). I’ve been working on some fun decor projects that I’m really excited for you to see come to life. While this doesn’t look like the wedding we originally planned, being able to get married at all after what we all went through last year, is nothing short of a miracle.
All photos taken by Mary Costa in 2019