Working Through a Difficult Wedding Season
Photo by Good For The Soul Photography
Like many other people, I went into 2020 with an extremely positive and excited attitude, ready to take on what I had hoped would be my “best year yet” in business. The year started off great and I was looking forward to all of the weddings to come in 2020. Then, COVID hit us out of no where. It rocked our entire world and threw all of our plans right off the track. Including, the entire wedding industry. Not only did COVID mess with all our personal lives including our jobs, our income, our social interaction, our family life, our social gatherings (especially weddings), etc, it also messed with our mental health. It drained our emotions. It uprooted our coping mechanisms and it created a whole new need for self care.
During these last few months, I have been working with my amazing couples to navigate this ever changing environment and just trying my best to do everything I can to be there for them and help them in any way that I can. As a Wedding Planner, I am used to being the one that people come to for answers and for help. It has been so hard, from this side of things, to not be able to answer some of their questions. To not know when this will be over. To not know 100% what is safe and what is not. To not know what the best decision is for their individual weddings and for each of them and their loved ones. All I want to do is to be able to swing a magic wand it make it all better for all of these couples right now. I just want to fix it and I can’t. That is the worst feeling for me.
There have been lots of very difficult conversations with couples struggling to make the right decision to either postpone, cancel or completely change their wedding plans. The wedding plans that they have been dreaming of are now being completely shattered. It’s honestly heartbreaking to have to tell your couple that their wedding might not be able to happen right now or happen the way they had wanted it after working with them for so long to create a beautiful vision. Their tears, their sadness, their anger, their disappointment is so real. This isn’t what they had pictured when they started planning their wedding. This isn’t what they thought they would be dealing with in the wedding planning process. They didn’t ask for this. None of us did. None of us expected to be in the positions we are in now. Making the decisions we now have to make. Working through restrictions we could have never imagined.
For the couples who are going through this right now, here are some things that I have learned with my own couples struggling through this that have really helped them along the way.
Grieve - There is a grieving process that has to happen in order for you to be able to make steps forward. Your wedding day has so much emotion wrapped up in it from the two of you, and family and friends. which can be quite a weight on your shoulders during the normal wedding planning process, without a global pandemic. When you are confronted with a difficult decision to postpone, cancel or rethink your entire wedding plan, it is completely ok for you to feel every emotion. It’s ok to be angry. It’s ok to be sad. It’s ok to cry, through a fit, scream into a pillow, or drink a whole bottle of wine. It’s ok. Trust me, I have had to do a few of these things myself throughout the pandemic to just get from one day to the next. Your feelings and your emotions are valid and you are 100% allowed to feel those things. This is hard and it sucks. It sucks. It really does. But, if you don’t allow yourself to grieve and be angry or be sad, or frustrated or disappointed, you won’t be able to pick yourself back up and move forward with your wedding and make the best decisions together as a couple. Feel your feelings.
Still Celebrate - I know this can feel really hard right now but, we honestly could all use something to celebrate in this difficult time. If you postponed your wedding until 2021 or 2022, still celebrate on your original date. Whether that means that you get legally married in front of a handful of close family & friends, have a micro wedding in your parents backyard, do a virtual ceremony online or even just share a mini version of your wedding cake and a bottle of champagne in your living room while you recite some vows to each other, your love is worth celebrating. Your love matters. The date you originally selected to be the day you would give yourselves to each other still matters. It all still means something and one day when you look back on 2020, you will be glad that you celebrated the day that was meant to mean so much to you both.
Talk To Someone - Now, more than ever, having someone to talk to has been so necessary. Don’t feel like you need to suffer through this alone. Talk to someone. If you have a Wedding Planner, talk to your Wedding Planner. We might not have all the answers right now but, we do care about what you are going through and we want to help you in anyway that we can. If you have a therapist, talk to your therapist about what you are dealing with right now through wedding planning as well as personal struggles. It’s ok to talk about how hard wedding planning is because it is. It’s not easy, especially now. If you don’t have a Planner or a Therapist, talk to a good friend or family member who is willing to just listen and allow a safe space for you to vent. It can be so toxic to our mental health to hold all our feelings inside so getting them out and talking through them with someone else can really help.
Although I personally have tried to maintain a positive attitude and outlook on this year and this season. I am not blind to the difficulties that this has brought to all of us. I have struggled with my own emotional roller coaster through all of this. What has been helping me through this has been talking to a therapist, giving myself grace, allowing myself to feel, creating new goals for myself and remembering to celebrate the little things and accomplishments in my life. There is no denying that this year has not been at all what we expected but, I have faith that we can get stronger from this. That we will get through this. That we will find the beauty in life again and that we will have much to celebrate on the other side.
Couples, Wedding Pros, Friends, if you need someone to talk to, please reach out. You don’t have to go through this alone. Keep your head up, your hearts open and your dreams alive. We will see better days! <3
Love,
Naticia
Photo by Good For The Soul Photography
