NUPTIALS RE-IMAGINED
Microweddings, minimonies focus couples on quality over quantity while keeping Lehigh Valley wedding vendors working during COVID-19
Inayah Jones isn’t your typical bride-to-be.
“I don’t like being the center of the attention,” she said. “I wasn’t one of the girls who grew up dreaming about her wedding. I knew I wanted it outdoors, and that’s all I wanted it to be.”
Jones and her fiance, Darryl Jordon, both of Upper Macungie Township, are tying the knot Saturday, and steered their nuptial celebration to be small, with the room full of love and no ill intentions, they said. Their date has special significance, too, as it was the original due date for their daughter, Leilana, who is now 4 years old.
“It wasn’t about the quantity for us. It was about the quality of people there,” Jordon said. “We wanted it to be intimate, personal and memorable. We just wanted the people that were genuinely invested in what we’re doing.”
The pair is one of many couples in the Lehigh Valley and around the country who decided to downsize their wedding due to the pandemic. For them, it meant cutting down their already short guest list, taking into consideration relatives with a high risk for infection and those who would have to travel from out of state.
Ditching more traditional celebrations — hundreds of people, hefty price tags — was somewhat popular before the coronavirus caused state and local officials to limit gatherings, but those mitigation efforts have made microweddings and minimonies even more prevalent — some by choice, others by necessity.
And those in the local wedding scene say the trend is here to stay.
Carrie Skinner, owner of Carrie on Events in Whitehall Township, said she’s worked on a handful of recent microweddings, and it’s really the “small touches” that round out the experience, like having a guestbook even if there are only a
dozen people to sign it; taking care of safety needs, like providing masks and distributing hand sanitizers as favors; and streaming the event online for those who aren’t in the room.
“What I’ve focused on is really trying to get them reexcited about their new plans. And then, as we get into it, I’m finding that couples ... can get reexcited, and they can imagine it’s going to be an amazing day with fewer people,” she said.
Of couples who planned to get married last year, 96% had to change their plans in some way, according to a recent survey of over 7,600 couples through wedding planning site The Knot. Nearly 50% were forced to reduce or limit their guest count.
About half of all receptions had 50 people or fewer, with nearly a quarter having fewer than 25, according to the survey. On average the guest count was down roughly 50% from the year prior, from 131 to 66.
Ryan Mason, owner of Cake & Corolla Bakery in Easton, has worked on several recent microweddings, describing them as “pretty fun,” but emphasizing that they can be similar to a traditional wedding, just smaller.
“The cakes can be still be super-elaborate as if it were, you know, a regular-size wedding,” he said. “So that doesn’t necessarily change. The size of the cake does.”
Mason said the pivot to smaller celebrations may have left vendors agreeing to do things they might not have done before, or haven’t had experience in, forcing them to adapt.
“You pretty much have no choice, and you still want to hold on to your wedding season ... ,” he said. “Because they’re already walking into the situation slightly disappointed because they dreamed of this elaborate wedding and they want it to be this big hurrah. So you try to give them close to normalcy as much as you can possibly get.”
As larger weddings had to be canceled or postponed, smaller celebrations helped the local businesses that depend on the wedding season.
“It’s kind of like bringing the wedding industry community together, because we’re all kind of struggling,” Mason said. “And we don’t know what happens next, but we’re making the best out of the situation. And it’s just allowing businesses to support each other, which is really awesome.”
Smaller weddings allow more emphasis on the ceremony, said Donna Forsythe, Jones’ and Jordon’s celebrant.
“What I love is that even though people are choosing to have these weddings, the ceremony itself has ended up becoming even more important, because all of a sudden you realize it’s a wedding,” she said. “And it’s not just, ‘Oh, we’re going to get married and have a massive party for all of our people.’ The ceremony pieces become the centerpiece.”
It’s up to everyone to reframe their thoughts on weddings, Forsythe said, returning them from enormous parties to couple-focused events.
“In a micro wedding, yes, you’re going to have people who are not going to be included,” she said. “I think it comes down to educating people on reasons why this is something that is important or the choice and why this choice was made by the couple and hopefully when you have people that love you, they should honor those choices that you’re making.”
For Jones, a big part of planning was making sure that she and her husband-to-be were having the best experience instead of putting the guests before them.
“I want to enjoy my wedding,” Jones said. “I’ve heard so many people say, ‘The wedding is for the guests. You won’t want fun.’ I want to enjoy it. I want to relax and breathe and have a good day.”
Asked if she had any advice for couples trying to figure out how to navigate wedding planning during the pandemic, Jones said to focus on the true meaning of the celebration.
“People get sometimes stuck in the mindset of tradition,” Jones said. “Just don’t get so wrapped up in the tradition that you think micro-weddings are a bad thing. At the end of the day, it’s a celebration of you and your spouse. Don’t think it’s an invalid wedding because it’s a smaller group of people, because they’re the ones who are most important.”