Crashing nearly all weddings in its sight
What’s it like to be one of many jilted at the altar by coronavirus?
When Alyson Tata and Beau Webster were choosing a date to get married, one day stood out. March 21, 2020.
“We loved how it was ‘3-21,’” Tata said.
It seemed like a perfect day to blastoff into a new life together. Then an uninvited guest left them standing at the altar.
With all due respect to Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, coronavirus has become the world’s greatest wedding crasher. Like many others. Tata and Webster had to to scrub their launch into matrimony.
About 2.2 million weddings are held each year in the U.S., which works out to about 6,000 a day. The vast majority have been postponed or canceled.
Such woes are fairly meaningless when thousands of people are dying of COVID-19. But America’s wedding-industrial complex generates $72 billion a year.
A lot of florists, photographers, planners, caterers, jewelers, venues, seamstresses, makeup artists, tuxedo stores and limo drivers are out of work.
Their damage is to the pocketbook. The would-be brides and grooms feel it in their hearts.
“We are getting to the point now where we can laugh about it,” Tata said. “A week ago, I was not able to have this conversation and be fine with it.”
She and Webster were nestled on a park bench near their Winter Garden home Tuesday afternoon. They looked like the kind of couple you might see on top of a wedding cake.
She’s 27 and works for AdventHealth. He’s 26 and works for CertiPay, a human resources company. They met in the Greek system at UCF, and really got to know each other on a 12-hour bus ride to New Orleans for a fraternity formal.
“I knew she was the girl for me,” Webster said.
They dated four years and then moved in together. At that point, it wasn’t a question of if Webster would pop the question — it was when.
He held onto the engagement ring for nine months, looking for the perfect moment. It came when they followed UCF’s football team to the Fiesta
Bowl in December 2018.
Two days before the game, the couple drove to the Grand Canyon. As the sun set over the far rim, Webster got down on one knee.
“It was amazing,” Tata said.
Tata spent “months and months” pondering dress colors, floral arrangements, music, venues, invitation fonts, the seating chart for 180 guests, etc., etc., etc.
Basically, a wedding requires only slight less planning than an invasion of Normandy. The key decision is picking D-Day.
A fall ceremony was out because it would conflict with UCF’s football schedule. Webster loves his Knights.
A summer wedding was out because the couple wanted an outdoor wedding.
“I didn’t want to sweat in my dress and makeup,” Tata said.
Spring looked ideal. They chose the Omni Orlando Resort, which had an opening March 21,
2020.
They booked that date in March 2019. Who knew then that ,10 days before the ceremony, Tom Hanks would announce he and his wife had coronavirus?
That same day, the NBA played it last games and President Trump gave a coronavirus speech from the Oval Office.
He did not ban weddings, but Tata and Webster could see trouble coming. A few out-of-town guests called to say they couldn’t make it.
Tata’s hobby is making crafts, so she made a sign to put at the entrance of wedding venue:
“No Hugs Doesn’t Mean No Love.
#COVID-19.”
But four days before the ceremony, her elderly uncle said he was too worried about coronavirus to attend. Webster’s grandfather chimed in with a similar message the same day.
“It’s one thing when friends say can’t come,” Webster said.
“But when have family member,” Tata added, “it really makes the day less special.”
With the countdown clock at T-minus 96 hours, they decided to pull the plug.
Tata and Webster realize the wedding problems of two people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. But it still took a few days of despondency for perspective to set back in.
“We’re happy, we’re healthy, we have job security as of now,” Webster said. “We realize it’s affected a lot of people more than a canceled wedding.”
And there is a cure for their kind of pain. Weddings can be rescheduled, and they’ve already picked a new date.
August 15th.
8-15?
“Yeah, it’s not sequential,” Tata said, “But it’s going to be great.”