When it comes to contingency planning for their weddings, couples and their planners typically have a plan B in mind for everything. In the case of COVID-19, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that no one saw this curve ball coming!
With the city and events currently in lock-down, would-be newlyweds have been left scrambling looking to book new dates for their entire wedding team! With so much emotion and time already invested in the planning process, COVID-19 has taken an already stressful process and brought many a couple to the absolute brink.
At times like this, as a bride, you may feel completely isolated and even somewhat resentful. Rest assured, these feelings are completely natural. We’re here to tell you that you are far from alone. We reached out to a handful of other Toronto couples who had to postpone their big day and we asked them to share their stories.
Alejandra and Jimmy
Our original wedding date was May 23rd, 2020, but the global pandemic had different plans for us. I think that we were in the same boat as many people around the world, naively thinking that this COVID-19 crisis wouldn’t come so close to home. In all honesty, the severity of the situation only hit us while on a work trip to London in early March. The streets of the usually hyper-populated city were eerily empty, quickly turning our trip, and the world, into an episode of Black Mirror, as we scrambled to figure out the quickest way back home.
It was during this trip that we phoned our wedding planner, Roxy Zapala of Art of Celebrations, and together decided to postpone our wedding to next year. Many factors propelled us to make this decision besides the obvious reason of wanting to do our bit in flattening the curve and protecting the health of our guests, half of whom are flying from abroad. Things that didn’t immediately come to mind, such as supply chain issues in the floral industry, were issues that Roxy quickly brought to our attention that facilitated making our decision.
We are fortunate to be working with a fantastic team of vendors in the GTA that have compassionately come together to help us postpone our big day, orchestrated by Roxy and her team. In the grand scheme of things, postponing our wedding is the least we can do in light of this global health crisis and will make for an epic post-quarantine celebration along with our friends and family when our day does come.
Sajni and Saba
Photo Courtesy of Scarlet O'Neill
Saba and I have been together for 8 years and were supposed to get married on May 17, 2020. We got engaged in Dec 2018, so everything was set – all the vendors were ready to go, our legendary planner, Shealyn Angus Weddings & Events was finalizing our itinerary and my Indian wedding dress had just arrived. Our wedding is a fusion Indian/Persian affair so it spans over a couple days.
While we were paying attention to COVID-19, we figured it was on the other side of the world – until it wasn’t any more. The federal government was taking drastic steps every day and the uncertainty seemed to hit too close to home. The day after I blissfully tried on my dress, we decided to check with vendors for backup dates and as things rapidly changed, made the decision to move the wedding that very same week. While some people thought it was pre-mature, it immediately felt like the right thing to do.
While remaining calm, we were flexible with our vendors and understood that these small businesses were just trying to navigate these extenuating circumstances. Even though it was difficult emotionally, we reminded each other what’s important – the health and safety of everyone, our family, friends and our vendors.
Even though we have to wait longer than expected, we are just happy to be together and hope everyone shows compassion to each other during this time.
Beatrice and Nishant
Photo Courtesy of Eric Cheng Photography
We started our wedding journey in December 2019 at the restaurant we went to on our first date. Patterned across a Margherita pizza were black olives, spelling out “WILL YOU MARRY ME”. There were lots of tears and of course I said, “Yes!”. My older brother works in the wedding industry as he owns a company called Snaptique. Since he had experience working with many wedding planners, he gave a few recommendations and that is how we met Fidan Ismayilova with Designed Dream Events. Fidan is very kind, knowledgeable about her work, and has amazing connections in the wedding industry. Our dates were set in May 2020, with three days worth of multi-faith weddings and events.
As the months came closer to our wedding dates, news about the COVID-19 outbreak started spreading. I am a Registered Nurse and this background helped me with a better understanding and perspective of what was happening. With a combination of family and guests who are local and international, I knew I had to make a decision earlier than later – a decision that put the health and safety of our family and friends at the forefront. On March 13th, we made the difficult decision to postpone all our weddings and events despite all the time, effort and money we put in – we even went to India for a week to get our outfits and do other wedding errands! Fidan was very patient, understanding and supportive and acted very efficiently and quickly. She gathered all the available dates for all the venues, reviewed contracts, and reached out to our vendors. In about a week’s time we were able to choose dates in October of this year. Fidan was able to help us by decreasing our overall stress by contacting our vendors and getting all necessary information, she was able to negotiate for us, review all the contracts, and so much more. We wouldn’t have been able to do this all successfully without her, especially with only going through a few speed bumps! One of the best decisions we made when we started our wedding plans was to hire a wedding planner, it was such a blessing that we met Fidan. Although the future is still unknown, we feel at peace knowing we have someone who is taking care of us. Thank you so much for all you do Fidan and the Designed Dream team!
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Megan and Damir
Photo Courtesy of Kim Scerri
It was March and we had just started to send out invitations for our barn wedding scheduled for June 13th. Unfortunately not even a week later COVID-19 hit Toronto. We waited a few weeks, before we made the unfortunate decision to postpone the wedding till next June. We realized we wouldn’t be able to have bridal showers, or bachelor parties, and if we continued with our plans, a lot of people we love dearly wouldn’t be able to be there due to age or medical difficulties. So for us we knew it was the right choice.
We are getting married in Innisfil ON on a property with a barn, we hired outside catering, had a reverend, photographer, DJ, and hair and makeup. We have been so lucky that the venue and vendors have been very accommodating. They simply held our deposits and there has been no added charge. Because we postpone due to COVID-19 and changed our date early, we were able to, by some miracle, get the venue and all the vendors available on the same date next year.
We were so sad, disappointed and angry that everything we have put so much effort into has come to a grinding halt. But when we finally decided to postpone the wedding it gave us some peace and control over a situation and time where it feels like so much is out of our control. We will get our happily ever after, we just have to wait one more year!
