Plandemic: Wedding Edition

*Disclaimer, probably not a whole lot of behavior analysis in this post. We will get back to that in a bit.*

October 19, 2019 was one of the best days of my life. In the beautiful state of New Hampshire, surrounded by amber leaves and crisp autumn air, I turned around to find the love of my life on one knee. He asked, I said yes, and the wedding planning began.

Immediately following our engagement we knew we did not want to get married in 2020. There were too many life events happening as I was trying to finish grad school and we were just starting out in our careers. So the summer of 2021 was the way to go.

Now a little back story for those of you who don't know. We currently live in Nebraska, where I was born and raised and my whole family resides. My fiancé was born and raised on the East Coast. Massachusetts is the state he calls home.

As a little girl I always pictured my fairytale wedding with my toes in the sand. Needless to say, when I met my fiancé those dreams were closer to a reality. We made the decision to plan a wedding from a distance and get married on a beach in Connecticut. The location is nothing short of perfect, an indoor reception venue located on the oceanfront.

Some may be surprised to know, we booked our venue without ever seeing it. After our engagement we went back to Nebraska and started the venue search. Although we were still 18 months out, the date I had originally been planning on was already booked. This lit a fire that expedited our deposit.

However, we weren't terribly worried. One long distance decision wouldn't make or break our big day. We planned a week long trip to CT over my spring break. We bought tickets to a wedding expo at our venue. The stress had faded away, we knew that our caterer, florist, officiant, bakery, hair and make up, photographer, bartenders, DJ, and anyone else we needed to hire would all be found in one place. Still more than a year out, March was going to be our month to plan.

Well fast forward to March 1st, 2020, I'm sure you all remember COVID-19 started taking the U.S. by storm. The virus was canceling events, flights, vacations, schools, and leaving your house all together. March went from the month of planning to the month of quarantine. Many might think this would have been a breath of fresh air, time to focus on nothing but wedding plans given our time at home. In a way it was. The amount of DIY projects I accomplished while still 14 months out was impressive. But still, we were left with the challenge of booking many of our vendors without a clue of when we would be allowed to travel again.

As we started emailing and calling various vendors, we found a common theme. Out of those who unfortunately had their wedding postponed due to COVID-19, many were choosing to postpone exactly one year, to our year. The overwhelming amount of time I thought I had to make decisions was suddenly running out. We had previously scheduled a tasting with our top catering choice. That was obviously canceled, but when we reached out we were shocked to find his dates for 2021 were quickly filling. We made possibly the most insane choice I've made in this whole wedding planning process, we chose to book our caterer without ever meeting the owner or tasting the food. What person books a caterer without tasting the food!? Still, we felt confident in our decision and I stand by it to this day.

Following what seemed like two of the hardest decisions I had to make, came a great deal of easy ones. We found ourselves rolling in the wedding plans once again, DJ, photographer, hair and make up, bartenders, and the florist, all hired without more than a phone call or email. It sounds crazy but it started feeling so natural to hire people we had never met. I guess a pandemic will do that to you.

So I suppose the major take away from this pandemic, was to not sweat the small stuff. Planning a wedding from 1,000 miles away was tricky, not traveling was a pain, but the extra time we had to sit and discuss what we really wanted out of our big day was priceless. March was the month of wedding planning, just not in the way we had hoped. That left April, May, and June to be spent not really thinking of the wedding as most of the major checklist items were long gone. The month of July will finally be the month of travel! We will have an opportunity to see our venue, meet our vendors, and explore the city I have never visited. Pandemic planning has been a process, but it hasn't been impossible. It required a lot of faith that we were making the right choices and the ability to say yes without regret.

Although this post isn't behavior analytic, I felt that it is something I am currently going through as I find my way as a BCBA. I also feel that there may be some brides out there who relate. We will all get through this together and say "I do" surrounded by the people who love us most.