COVID-19 wedding: a real life story on getting married in 2021

The perfect time to do something is nothing but a utopia. There’s no time like now for the ones that have their priorities set, and a wedding is no exception.

TLDR: are you getting married to put on a show for others or because you are eager to bind yourself to your dearest one? This is the key when one gets engaged during difficult times (a worldwide pandemic, unemployment, or any other kind of unexpected and uncontrollable events). For the ones keeping their values at heart and priorities cleared and set, to go forward with a wedding during harsh times or postponing it to an eventual better time is a simple decision. Planning when there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty is uncomfortable and requires a lot of mental flexibility to adapt to the circumstances coming from the unknown, yet it is possible (if one can learn something from the Agile mindset and practices is definitely that planning through uncertainty is possible).

The adventure of planning a wedding during COVID-19 motivated me to write this article. I decided to wait for everything to be settled and done (including the honeymoon travel) to share this experience with the world — after all, I bet there are other couples going through the same.

The good news is that as long as you know what your budget is and the kind of party you want, planning it is easy. Fool you not: if you don’t have a budget nor know what is important for you, then I can only wish you luck.

The story you are about to read is real. The wedding happened May 1st, 2021. I was the bride and Xavier, my husband (that I accidentally still call boyfriend after almost 6 years of habit), the groom, and the experience I’m sharing here was lived by us over the past year and a half. Hopefully you’ll consider it as one of two things:

• Useful — if you are going through the same situation;
• Reassuring — even if you are not looking for wedding content, you’ll learn that planning through uncertainty is possible and manageable.

Let’s grow (m)old together

We got engaged December 1st 2019, during a lovely weekend out of town to celebrate our 4th anniversary. Xavier was quite nervous as his proposal plan didn’t go as expected but everything ended up going well, and we came back home with some great news to share with our family and friends.

There was no intention from us to get married in a rush (in 3-6months) so we didn’t start planning anything immediately. Our family and friends both wanted a date and to know the details of the upcoming party but unfortunately for them we wouldn’t have nothing to share for over a year.

Beginning of 2020, Xavi moved jobs and was traveling a lot, and I was visiting a client in the Netherlands when we started to discuss wedding stuff. By the end of our trips, we were both arriving home the same day when our respective companies asked us to remain home, rather than returning to the offices as usual, to avoid health risks.

We were discussing the possibility to schedule the wedding for October when full lockdown started in Portugal. The rest of Europe followed the same rules, and so did the rest of the world. There was no chance planning would go as expected due to such uncertainty. To avoid drifting into an uncomfortable state of poorly managed expectations, we decided to postpone all wedding discussions until the last quarter of the year, somehow hoping the pandemic would have started dying down.

As you can see, our first reaction was the same as everyone else’s: let’s postpone this to a calmer time so that planning goes well.

The truth is that I was the first of my closest friends to get married so everything regarding wedding plans was unknown . To make it worse, COVID-19 hit hard on a global level, highly limiting services, traveling, and any kind of long-term planning, so it was just a one day at a time kind of experience.

By September there was hope for the first time.

Things were significantly better although all medical councils were preparing populations across the globe for a stronger second wave of the virus. We couldn’t sit at restaurants with friends anymore. We couldn’t spend Christmas with family without risking health of the oldest ones. We understood 2020 would not be our year and probably neither would 2021.

This was the moment of truth for us: were we getting married to put on a show for others or because we wanted to take our relationship to a closer level and start a family?

The answer to this question seems obvious at first sight, but we’ve learned that most would say the second although what they are really eager is to put on a show.

As soon as we acknowledged that for us the most important thing was to get married (not throwing a party for more than 100 people), we settled on a date and started drafting a list of invitees.

The 1st of May would be — 2021 was still 6 months away so which virus would live that long, anyway?

Wedding planning

The most difficult part of the planning was not knowing what we could expect from the government guidelines as they were being updated every 2 weeks — sometimes to withdraw some restrictions, some other times to implement harsher ones when cases started rising again.

We had 4–5 months to put a solid plan together and not knowing if we could even hire services for the month of May was making it hard.

No venues were open to host parties.

No restaurantes could operate locally as usual, they could just do takeaway or home delivery.

No stores were open later than 7pm — which, for full time workers like ourselves, is a nightmare.

I’m an organised person but felt like under these circumstances some support would be needed. I found an app called Casamentos.pt that helped me focus on what was indispensable (like the usual bureaucracy) and identifying what was secondary.

So here’s summary of the truly indispensable we took care of to make a successful wedding:

Wedding license / prenuptial agreements

I guess this is obvious but in case it isn’t: without this, you won’t get married.

Due to COVID-19, public services were super restricted so we had to schedule our visits to the notary office in advance — and of course pay our dues (200€ for the wedding license and 100€ more to the prenuptial paperwork).

Guest list

Our best-man and bridesmaid were decided ages before this step. We prepared cute kits for them to invite them for this important day in our lives and delivered those first.

After they accepted, we decided we would make a list of all people (the 100+) we would like to have present in our wedding day and send them a friendly notification explaining that the current health circumstances didn’t allow us to throw the party everyone wanted and that we decided not to postpone this milestone for an indeterminate amount of time.

Almost 30 days before the wedding, considering the government guidelines, we calculated how many people would be safe to gather in a small event for the celebration and we came up with the number 15 (grandparents, parents, and a small group of friends).

Invitations were created online in a proper website, ordered to be shipped with priority, and sent to their addresses.

The venue

Restaurants continued to face restrictions (working only until 1pm during the weekends and having to close maximum by 10pm from Monday to Friday) so did party venues (allowing for only 25% of their maximum capacity). Even paying a deposit, there were no guarantees the reception could happen.

Luckily for us, Xavi’s grandmother was happy to host a small reception at her astonishing house in the city center, as long as we’d assume all responsibility to organise catering, decoration, and cleaning services.

This made everything easier for us — not just money-wise, it took a huge weight from our shoulders by not having to reserve a place that, in the end, could not host the party last minute. This place was cosy and marvellously decorated with old artefacts as in a small palace, making it perfect for the celebration!

The budget

Every couple has their set of priorities and intended milestones, ours was to buy a house as soon as possible.

We live in a city which housing rental has gone up every year over the last decade, and rather than paying a high amount for something that’s not ours we’d prefer to get our own place.

This being said and considering the wedding would be small after all, we estimated (roughly) how much catering would cost us + outfit needs + wedding rings cost + blablabla.

We used the casamentos.pt app to design the budget and looked to stick to it while searching for the services/products necessary.

Place, Food & Flowers

This was by far the most pleasant one.

With businesses facing such difficult times, we decided to hire the special day’s services and products from our friends. They all make quality work at an affordable amount of money and this was a chance to keep their businesses up and running.

We reached out to our favourite Chef in town that kindly accepted to do the catering for us, and asked two of our friends to arrange flower bouquets and the wedding cake for us. Everything was perfect and customised the way we wanted.

Put a ring on it

Here’s one of the expensive parts but think about it this way: gold is an investment especially in times of crisis :)

We selected a jewellery store recommended in the app, went there for a visit, chose the rings, confirmed the budget, and came back two weeks after (already in the wedding’s week) to pick them up.

Outfit?

Xavier used to be a Business Manager and he had to use suits every day. As his suits were all in perfect condition, he opted to select one, have it cleaned up, and simply buy a new pair of shoes and a matching-tie to use with his best-man at the wedding day.

I love getting all dressed up but the most important thing for me is to feel comfortable in every outfit I wear, and the wedding wouldn’t be the exception. As we’ve decided to not have a church wedding but a civil one, I had some difficulties finding elegant yet sober outfits to purchase for me as the bride. For some reason, wedding stores are only focused in shiny long dresses and there’s not many options for people that prefer to have a smaller and more discrete ceremony.

On this subject, the app was not helpful at all but consulting friends via Instagram was. ASOS had some interesting options but being an online store based in the UK was a con — if it didn’t fit well returning the clothes would be a time-nightmare and would just put me in a stress. I found a beautiful and elegant all-white jumpsuit in a Portuguese store for 89€ that was then adjusted by a dressmaker for another 20€.

Shoes and overall accessories costed around the 100€. Let me know when you find a bride that makes this happen with the same amount.

Honeymoon

From time to time we were taking a look into Skyscanner’s website to check for travel restrictions updates.

We were working from home without vacations for over 9 months by the time the wedding would take place so it was fundamental that we’d leave the house for a few days to relax.

Although neither of us had used it before, we opted to hire a travel agency (Transalpino) to take care of the arrangements for us due to all the lack of stability with flights and travel restrictions. They provided us with a few options considering our budget and preferences and we selected Tulum, in Mexico, to enjoy our honeymoon and it was a great decision!

We did snorkeling with turtles in crystal blue waters, visited two Cenotes, stayed in a 5-star resort in a calm area of Tulum in an all inclusive package, and even got 1 day to quickly visit Madrid (in Spain) in our way back. 🌎

People will tell you things

I cannot say with a straight face that planning a wedding is difficult. It really isn’t.

People overcomplicate everything because they expect others will like what they decide, because they want to make their invitees happy. When you focus on what the couple wants, planning a wedding might be a fun and easy project to manage.

I’m not an hypocrite though— this wasn’t the plan we initially had in mind for our wedding neither the ones respecting traditions — but one of the biggest benefits of having a wedding during this pandemic was that we were able to save a huge amount of money. This amount can now be used to purchase our first house!

Obviously, not everything was pitch-perfect (whoever tells you that is lying for sure) but nothing major happened to ruin the positive outcomes in the end.

The biggest learning we’ve taken from our wedding planning was that people love to judge everything others do and don’t do — they always have an opinion/advice to offer even when not requested, they always think they know better what’s good for you.

To wrap up this article, do you want to have some fun?

Here are some questions and comments I heard during the wedding decision-making/prep process:

Are you really going to get married this way? Why not waiting for better days to do it?

Meaning of better days to do it = a time where others can get crazy drunk for free at your party.

I wouldn’t do this that way.

Ok, you, thanks for the (unsolicited) opinion.

Are you really going to have a bachelorette party? I mean, you won’t even have a normal wedding.

This one was, by far, my favourite. Can someone please point me the book of life that states the illegality of throwing a bachelorette party if your wedding is limited to 15 people rather than 150?

Before you wonder: we were only 4 amazing girls in a private rented-house and we all took a COVID test upfront to keep each other’s safe.

No wedding dress?? Is that even worthy to marry tough?

Ahhhhh, tradition, you old bastard.

Can you imagine me in a full-long wedding dress entering a small courthouse? That would be the joke of the year. I would never feel comfortable dressing as if I was going to church.

Let’s do one more.

Aren’t you sad the wedding is going to be small?

Here’s something people have difficulties understanding: marriage isn’t a concept everyone interprets the same way.

For us, marriage represents our start at building up a family while sharing the same values, and facing together the best and worst days of our lives. It is the start point of a new life stage and it wouldn’t make us happier inviting 100+ people instead of 15.

Traditions are wonderful but they are not mandatory neither dictate your level of happiness and self-realisation in life.

Be bold enough to challenge the status-quo and do whatever it fits your life better!

Our wedding was amazing — a day filled with love from (some of) our closest family members and friends, amazing food, many hugs, and good anxiety to pack our bags to finally leave the house for our honeymoon.

Life is uncertain. Period.

COVID-19 just elevated that uncertainty to a new level that scared the hell out of us but that doesn’t mean we should all just postpone our lives. If you have the financial and emotional conditions: go and buy that house you have been saving for; get married; travel to a place that is usually far too expensive but allowed to visit now as long as you follow the guidelines; open a savings account; enrol that training you’ve been delaying for months; live a life!

No one can promise you there will be another opportunity soon.