A Wedding Update + some thoughts on comparative suffering

As you might have guessed, Adam and I have decided to postpone our wedding… again. If I’m being totally honest, I knew it was coming for a while. After we picked our August date, I opened a tab to order “Change The Date” postcards, and that tab just stayed open on my computer because I couldn’t bring myself to order them. The tears that flowed the weekend that was supposed to be my bachelorette party wasn’t because I was overly upset that couldn’t happen. I understood that it was a small sacrifice amidst everything else going on. Not a big deal! Instead, the tears were hard to hold back because I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to celebrate a wedding either. 

Despite knowing it in my gut, I think I waited to make the call to leave space for some sort of miracle. MAYBE something will change that will make this August date possible. MAYBE?? Adam is very much an optimist and was really clinging on to that mentality – so I could too, right?! I had been rotating between sadness and optimism ever since we postponed the first time. And then I saw JB Pritzker’s 5 Phase Plan and I knew we couldn’t keep pretending. We needed to reschedule our wedding again. 

Our New Date

The good news? All of our vendors are available on June 6th, 2021 and we locked that date in! Of course there is still the chance that COVID could be wreaking havoc on our lives next spring too. But we are choosing to hope for the best again. 

As of right now, we are planning on waiting instead of getting married this year in a smaller capacity. The main thing both of us have been looking forward to is celebrating with our big families. Most of my family lives on the East Coast and most of Adam’s lives on the West Coast, so we don’t get to see them often. Gathering those people in one space has always been really important to us. To just let that dream go is really hard. I know not everyone will understand that. But eloping or getting married with just our immediate families wouldn’t be a bummer for us because we’re missing the spectacle. It would be a bummer because we’d miss the hugs and connection with people we love. So for now, we wait another year and hope for the best.

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Some thoughts on comparative suffering…

Honestly, I’ve been feeling pretty good about everything since we officially made the switch to our new date. It is what it is. And ultimately, Adam and I are already committed to each other and we know August is just too risky. I just needed to get everything in order. Sign contracts, and reach out to friends and family before clueing you guys in.

Then yesterday, I was listening to the Be There In Five’s podcast episode about Influence in the Time of Covid Part 2. She conducted a survey where her listeners could enter what they think influencers are doing well or what is annoying right now. I thought it would be helpful to hear some feedback. And I thought the first episode was really interesting, so I tuned in. Most of the comments were either helpful or applied more to people with way bigger Instagram followings and way more “perfect” lives than mine. And then there was one that struck me directly. It was something like “I hate it when people post that it was supposed to be their wedding day. I get that weddings are important, but people are dying.“

WOOF.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that this was just one person. And the likelihood that they were talking about me is slim. But regardless, it stung because it’s a big reason why I haven’t shared many of the thoughts about rescheduling that I was sifting through… despite the frequent requests for more wedding content right now from other brides going through this. I’d prefer not to read judgey DMs telling me just to elope from someone with a profile photo of their wedding day. Haha no thanks!

Anyway, I turned that off (not because of Kate – she’s great! I just didn’t want anything to trigger me more ?), and I turned on Brene Brown’s podcast about comparative suffering instead. I highly recommend giving it a listen yourself. But the main point is that someone will always be going through something worse than you. Hence the “you’re not allowed to feel sad about your wedding plans when people are dying.“

But the truth is that everyone deserves to feel their feelings.

If you’re sad, you’re allowed to be sad – regardless of how it compares to someone else’s pain. And even more than that, you can feel your own feelings AND have gratitude AND feel empathy for others at the same time. All of those things are not mutually exclusive. 

In the past few months, I have been struggling with many of the same things all of you are, wedding disappointments aside. Most of the time, I am upset that people are dying. And even more upset that there are people who don’t care. Especially when people in a position of power don’t seem to care (don’t come at me for that – if you’re allowed an opinion, so am I.). Also, in terms of dealing with loss, Adam lost two family members just two weeks ago. I didn’t share that when it happened because it wasn’t my place to do so. But the point is that we’re well aware that people are losing loved ones and can’t properly mourn them or honor them right now. It’s devastating.

In terms of job losses and salary cuts, I am SO grateful that we can still afford everything we need right now. But Adam and I are both technically independent contractors. We are not immune to the economic impact of this virus. We had big plans to buy a home soon. And now that might need to be put on hold until we really have an idea of how much all of this will impact our income.

And I think the biggest thing we are ALL struggling with is the uncertainty of the future.

Sure, that includes some more specific concerns right now for me: everything with the wedding, disappointment that we have NO idea when we’ll ever be able to go on our honeymoon (I was going to finally see Italy for the first time ?), concern about when we’ll be ready to buy a home, pressure to start a family since I’ll now be 34 when we get married, etc. But everyone is grieving future plans right now. How could you not?

I’m not sharing any of this for sympathy or to add to the “ranking” that Brene talks about. I just wanted to remind all of you that everyone is going through a lot. We have to give ourselves enough grace to feel what we’re feeling so that we can move through it and come out on the other side with gratitude and perspective. And as long as they aren’t hurting anyone else, let’s give other people a little bit of that grace, too.

What do you guys think about all of this? Do you find yourself feeling guilty for feeling certain ways through this craziness? Let’s talk about it!

Also, if you are planning to elope or have a smaller ceremony this year, here are a few white dresses I love:

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PS. You might also like My Letter to 2020 Brides Affected by COVID-19, How To Reschedule Your Wedding, and My Wedding Planning Bundle!