Pages

Monday, August 31, 2020

#MicroblogMondays: For whom the wedding bells toll....

A friend announced her daughter's engagement yesterday on social media. The wedding is tentatively scheduled for summer 2022 -- one reason being that venues are already booked solid for 2021 -- no doubt in part because of all the weddings that were supposed to be held this year but were postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Reading her post, it struck me that we were supposed to be at a wedding on Saturday night -- that of dh's youngest cousin on his mother's side (as well as his godson). The couple got engaged over the Christmas holidays -- pre-pandemic -- and we received a "save the date" email in early April. I remember thinking then that they were being optimistic -- but surely by late August we would be over the worst of this thing, right?  And how nice it would be to see & hug everyone and compare lockdown/quarantine experiences. But by mid-June, we received another email that the couple had made the difficult decision to postpone their wedding. No alternate date was given, other than "sometime next year, likely in the summer."

I felt a little sad, thinking about the wedding that wasn't.  I'll admit that weddings haven't always been easy these past 22 years. Our nephews' weddings and the weddings of dh's cousins' kids especially are always reminders of our own daughter and the wedding that will never be. But the groom in this case is in his early 40s & is of dh's own generation of cousins, i.e., not Katie's. Grief echoes aside, I've always enjoyed weddings -- getting dressed up (something we so seldom get to do these days), seeing the extended family and catching up with them, having a good meal, dancing, taking a ton of photos, seeing what the bridal party is wearing... 

But then I read this story this morning... better safe than sorry, right? 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.  

6 comments:

  1. One of our largest COVID19 clusters back in March/April was a wedding in a small town in the very south of the South Island. The virus was brought by one wedding attendant who had returned from overseas. The groom's father died, and another contact of the guests. Definitely better safe than sorry.

    (And yes, I like weddings too, because I also don't get the chance to dress up very much these days! lol)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Weddings & funerals (as well as bars) seem to be real COVID hotspots, unfortunately. :(

      Delete
  2. Oh man, that Millinocket wedding... So sad. Really shows how masking and avoiding gatherings keeps spread in check. I'm sorry you're missing out on the wedding, and they re uncertainty fire when it is rescheduled. So many things on hold. I know people who've rescheduled, and people who've reimagined their weddings much smaller so they could get married, just save the big party for later. I did a small wedding with a hedge cereal into earlier, but that was my choice... It must be hard to have that choice taken away. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love weddings. I guess I've been lucky because all of the weddings I've been to have been fun. I love celebrating love, eating, and hanging out with people. :)

    This pandemic breaks my heart in a million different ways.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Totally hear you on the sadness of wedding cancellations/postponements and I'm sorry your friend's daughter has to postpone for now. My cousin did a tiny, immediate family only wedding this summer and we're hoping things work out for the party next summer (fingers crossed, sigh). Wished so much we could have been there, but yep, weddings/funerals/bars really do seem to be major hot spots - definitely better safe than sorry.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yikes. It's so sad for all the people who have had to put things off indefinitely, and it's so sad for families who have experienced being the source of an outbreak. As Infertile Phoenix says, the pandemic breaks my heart in a million ways.

    And yes, agreeing with you; better safe than sorry.

    ReplyDelete