COVID forces engaged couples to think small, intimate, unique
In March 2021, our daughter married her sweetheart in a beautiful ceremony.
Outdoors. On a Monday. With just 20 people, including the wedding planner and officiant, in attendance. It was perfect.
Was the celebration what they’d originally planned? Not even close. But after changing their date three times and losing copious amounts of money in deposits, they decided they didn’t need all the fanfare that comes with a banquet-sized wedding as much as they needed to get on with their lives.
Of course, they took the pandemic seriously. As a hospital nurse, my daughter had worked first-hand with COVID patients, some of whom died horribly tragic deaths. Safety was of utmost concern.
So they accepted the safety measures, pared the guest list to the bone and got married.
Today, they live in Naperville with their newborn son.
If there’s one thing engaged couples realized over the past two years, it is to always have a backup plan, said Sarah Rodriguez, owner of Sarah Kathleen Events, a Chicagoland wedding and event planning company based in Montgomery.
“Expect changes because there will be changes,” she said. “Some couples took the chaos with a grain of salt. It was more important for them to get married. Others took it very personally.”
If 2020 was chaotic, 2021 was manic, as couples and venues tried to make up for lost time, she said.
The snowballing effect has led to a jam-packed 2022 for many venues, vendors and planners.
“Things are booking up quicker. It’s harder to get photography and other vendors,” she said. “Also, unfortunately, all of this has caused significant price increases among venues, entertainment and florists.”
The craziness has led to some fundamental changes in the way many couples now see wedding celebrations, Rodriguez said.
More are opting to have smaller events on weekdays and at venues not necessarily known for hosting traditional weddings.
Taylor and Corey Manders, of Chicago, were supposed to get married June 6, 2020. COVID forced them to postpone the event four times and, in the end, their venue canceled on them just weeks before the big day.
“It was quite frustrating,” Taylor Manders said. “We would have just eloped had we not already invested so much money into a big celebration.”
Rodriguez found them a new site, The J. Parker, a rooftop restaurant atop the Hotel Lincoln, and replanned everything, including the specialty decor. Miraculously, the May 8, 2021 celebration went off without a hitch.
“It was amazing,” Manders said. “It was great to see everyone come together and want to do this for us. We were very happy with the end result.”
Manders said she knows others have experienced the same kind of chaos.
“I think a lot of wedding expectations have changed because of COVID. Now it comes down to basics. It’s not about the time or place, it’s really about the two of you and what’s really important at the end of the day,” she said.
“I know a lot of people now getting married on a Friday or a Thursday and doing a weekend thing because a lot of venues are booked,” she said.
Manders, who is now expecting the couple’s first child, said she’s glad the stress is behind her.
“We’re happy to be married. That was probably the biggest test we could go through before being married and we got through it,” she said.
Cindy Wagner-Leonard married Mike Leonard in October 2021.
A second marriage for both, the Leonards, who live in Frankfort, knew from the start they wanted a more subdued affair.
“We didn’t want the whole shebang. We wanted more meaning, a more intimate, more personal event,” Wagner-Leonard said.
COVID forced that issue, and even though they would have liked to have had a longer guest list, they kept it small to ensure better protection for their parents and others concerned about the virus.
“Our biggest problem was finding a venue that would allow a smaller group,” she said. Many of the places they called wanted them to guarantee a minimum of 150 to 200 guests, she said.
Not wanting to risk losing the kind of deposit such a minimum would require, Wagner-Leonard said she went on the hunt for an alternative. But many of the smaller places only offered a section of the restaurant for small gatherings, something that she said could still put COVID-wary guests at risk.
She looked for micropackages but was “very surprised the industry didn’t respond to what was going on with COVID.”
On weddingwire.com she found a newly opened restaurant called the Graceful Ordinary in St. Charles.
“We fell in love with the place and the concept of it,” she said.
The restaurant was closed to the public on Sunday, so the Leonards chose that day for their special event and ended up having the venue totally to themselves.
“It was absolutely fantastic. The food out of this world. The service was wonderful,” she said.
“Usually big weddings are a blur, you barely get to eat, you don’t really get to talk to everyone. It can be a huge letdown afterward,” she said.
“This time it was different,” she said. “We had people crying during the ceremony. They said it was the best wedding they’d ever been to because we made it very personal.”
Her advice: “Don’t rule out the unexpected venues. Consider a different day or time. And be resilient.”
It stormed on her wedding day, she said. But considering all they’d been through, she added, “that was nothing.”
“Everything was beautiful.”