Well. Hi. Here we are.
I’d ask you how the Delta Variant is impacting your wedding planning, but I think we all know. It sucks. But it’s worse than that, and the situation we’re all in feels particularly soul crushing. We got through the worst of it last year, and it seemed like hope had arrived this spring. At APW, we wrote posts called So Your Wedding Is Back On. Wedding vendors who’d been essentially out of work for a year suddenly had more work than they could physically manage. We were all shopping for wedding guest dresses, and rushing from wedding to wedding for the folks who were lucky enough to have planned their wedding during those few blissful months.
And then in the last two weeks, the reality of Delta started setting in, and things started slowly lurching to a halt. Watching case numbers soar, hospitals fill to the brim, and trying to figure out how plans need to change, yet again, has been particularly soul crushing. And without the kind of clear Shelter In Place orders that we had last spring, and ever shifting advice from the CDC, figuring out what plans should be seems fuzzy at best.
At APW, our inbox has been hit with a flood of wedding dilemmas in the past two weeks, including but not limited to:
- I’m a bridesmaid for a wedding this fall/winter, and I don’t know how to ask the Bride what the plans are. I want to stay safe, I want to not stress her out further, and I also don’t want to buy a super expensive non-returnable bridesmaid dress that I might never have a chance to wear.
- We had our small masked Zoom COVID wedding in the early days of the pandemic, and had finally gotten the green light for our big fall reception, and now we’re likely going to have to call it off. At this point we’re ready to have kids and move on with our lives so what do we do?
- We’ve re-planned our wedding literally seven times, and we finally were ready to go on our big ass party. Now if it’s off, we cannot emotionally manage planning it another time, so now what?
- I’m supposed to be attending a large wedding in a hotspot in the next month. The couple is full speed ahead (less out of COVID denial than out of I-can’t-do-this-again denial) and I have small unvaccinated children and know I can’t safely attend. Do I tell them now, or wait with the hopes that they’ll call it off themselves.
- COVID isn’t real and my friends are canceling on my wedding, and I’m Big Mad. (Yes, we get these emails too.)
- We want to get engaged, but we also want a wedding in front of our family and friends. We’ve been putting things off, figuring we’d get to the other side of the Pandemic, get engaged, and have the party of our dreams…. but now we’re wondering if that’s a fantasy and we just need to get it done.
I wish I had clear answers for you, dear readers. After all, I’ve written two books on weddings (the original, andthe workbook) plus an e-book on pandemic wedding planning, so certainly I must know the right thing to do. But the truth is: I don’t. I’m an expert in weddings, but I’m not an expert in ever-changing pandemics, reading the future, or the needs of your hearts. And frankly, you’re not an expert on most of those things either (unless you are a psychic epidemiologist with an obsession with etiquette. In which case email me, I have a job for you).
But there is one thing you’re an expert on, and that’s the needs of your hearts. So with all things weddings, my advice boils down to this: do what’s kind, do what’s safe, and do whatever makes you feel married in the end.
I wish I had a better world for you friends, but I don’t. So in the meantime, mask up, love each other, and debate all your wedding problems in this open thread.
XO
Meg
It’s your Delta open thread. Vent, ask questions, sob uncontrollably, help each other out… the comments are yours for the taking.
