Wedding Planning in a Pandemic

 

Hey friends!

It has been a long time since I have posted a blog. Life has been crazy! The same goes for you, I’m sure. I have polled my audience and the most popular topic for me to share next is how I planned my wedding in a pandemic. So, HERE WE GO!

As you guys know, Benjamin and I got engaged in November 2019 (so right before the pandemic). Within a week or two, we had a date planned. We had no clue where we would get married, but after thinking about school, graduations, and bowl games, we decided that the best time would be in December. After graduation and hopefully before any bowl games. We have always hated the idea of a summer wedding because we did not want to deal with the heat and humidity (no offense to my friends that have them. They are beautiful, just too hot for me). I also did not want a two-year engagement. After setting a date, we quickly ordered our save the dates. We wanted our family and friends to mark their calendars as soon as possible! We were so excited!

Our next step was to find a venue. We searched around Auburn because that was a neutral site for both of our families, and it was perfect for our friends. Both of our hometowns are about 3-4 hours away from Auburn, but in opposite directions. After looking around the area, we decided that the venues were too expensive for what was included, or the venues did not contact us back about our interest (what great customer service). I then decided to look into my childhood church. I highly recommend getting married at the church you are a part of. It saved us money! They only charged a cleaning fee, lighting fee, and sound fee. They also offered to let us use their dining hall for our reception, but we had a place in mind.

We had searched places in Panama City Beach and Panama City for a reception venue. The top two choices came down to Runaway Island and Rosie Creek Farms. Runaway Island is a great restaurant with an amazing view of the beachfront, but not quite what we were looking for. Rosie creek farms really spoke to my country farmhouse soul. Wendy Adams, the owner of RCF is a pleasure to work with and is so kind! RCF has horses, chickens, a vintage red truck, a beautiful white barn, a fireplace, and a firepit. Not to mention their gorgeous farmhouse! 

We talked to Wendy about just having the reception at the farm and not the actual wedding. That cut our cost down some too, considering we wouldn’t have to you their farmhouse or groom’s cabin for getting ready. My mom and I went without Ben (sorry Ben!) to check the farm out. It was a perfect spot for a perfect day. I loved all of the decorations and charm of the farm. I also loved how it still had proof of surviving hurricane Michael. - Not many people outside of the panhandle knew of the destruction that happen to our home in October of 2018. Hurricane Michael was a 2 that grew into a category 5 hurricane overnight. Many families chose to stay and brace the storm because it changed too quickly to leave. My family had driven to Chipley, about an hour inland. I remember telling them to come to Auburn because of how dangerous the storm was. Hurricane Michael was set on a path the went directly to my hometown. My family had lost power in Chipley for about a day. I was terrified that I couldn’t get ahold of them. Hurricane Michael had taken out several cell towers and Verizon couldn’t keep up (still doesn’t tbh). My family was very fortunate to have minimal damage done to our house. We needed a new roof and a new privacy fence, but that was it. After the storm, my family ended up staying in Auburn for about a week because our house didn’t have any power or running water. – Moving on from the story of Michael (I wanted to give you guys some background knowledge). I loved that RCF showed just how resilient the Panhandle is. It is 850 STRONG! 

We ended up getting many of our wedding photos with the sideways trees in the background, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 RCF also has a whole room with decorations that we could use. We actually ended up buying very few decorations at all for our wedding. We bought the Christmas tree for the center table, the tulle for the ceremony chairs, candles for the candelabra, and florals. Of course, we had to buy the plates, cups, etc., We bought our florals from Michael’s and Hobby Lobby, then I made the bridesmaids bouquet and my own bouquet. That saved us a lot of money.

            The same day that my mom and I went to check out the farm, I bought THE DRESS! I originally thought that I had found my dress in Opelika. I had it on hold for two weeks while I searched around some more. My mom and I went to Dream Gowns just to check out their selection of dresses. I wasn’t planning on finding one then or buying one then. The dress I ended up buying was not anything that I had in mind. I was loving the mermaid/trumpet gowns with sleeves. I had been telling myself for years that if my dress didn’t have sleeve, then it wasn’t the one. BUT every dress that I tried on that I thought I would love, I hated on me. The nice guy at Dream Gowns encouraged me to try some dresses on that I didn’t think I would like because I could be surprised. Indeed, I was. It came down to two dresses. One with sleeves and all the sparkles, and one with no sleeves and very simple. I was torn. I finally decided to go with the simpler dress for three reasons. One, I couldn’t lift my arms in the dress with sleeves. If I raised them higher than level, the dress would pull on my shoulders and would bunch up. Two, the chest on the sparkly one was kind of see through and you could see the bra cups… Three, the simple one was just so very classic, timeless, and elegant! So, we bought the dress a year before the wedding.

            After December, we really didn’t do much planning again until May. The pandemic hit us in March, we didn’t go back to school, and we just waited until we knew more. We waited until shops were open again to start an account at Men’s Wearhouse. They have great suits, but not great service. We actually had a groomsman have to go back to the store the day of the wedding because they got his sizes wrong. After we had set up the account with them, it was up to the groomsmen to go get fitted and pay their deposit. I had the ladies pick their dresses/styles in January but gave them a deadline to purchase their dresses by August. I decided to have the girls in the same color, but let them pick a style that they would feel comfortable in.

            We had our engagement photoshoot done in April. Instead of booking a photographer and spending the extra money, we had my mom take our photos with Ben’s camera. He had just purchased this camera the summer prior and it is *insert kiss noise*. Since spring formal had been cancelled, I used the dress that I had bought for that. Funny but not so funny story, all Ben had to do was pack khakis, a black button down, a belt, and nice shoes. He did not pack his pants… So, he (miraculously) used my brother’s pants (Jordan is a string bean). The photos turned out perfect! I edited them, designed our invites, and ordered them all in the same night! 

We used Vistaprint for our save the dates, but Shutterfly for our invitations. Ben’s sister Jennifer was kind enough to hand address all of our invites! We collected addresses through Google Forms and then she took the wheel on getting the envelopes ready. An angel.

            Our deadline for sending out the invitations was October 19^th (two months before the wedding). Just a heads up for couples planning their weddings, RSVP by _____, means nothing to people. I tried to give people a few grace days but ended up having to call them after a week of waiting past the deadline. Go ahead and give your people calls the day of the deadline. Save yourself the stress of waiting. We had A LOT of save the dates and invitations get lost in the mail. When I went to check in with people to see if they could make it or not, they then would tell me that the never received the invite/save the date. UGH. Sometimes the post office would send them back to me for no reason, sometimes they didn’t send them back at all. The one that killed me though, was the one that was gone for a month and then finally returned to me. So, if you’re good with e-invites, do that instead too. It is not worth the stress.

            The very last planning thing we did was the food. Ben’s mom took care of all of the desserts. She baked our wedding cake, the groom’s cake, the cupcakes, and the cookies! Ask her if she got any sleep… She’ll say she did, but it was like an hour. 

We bought all of our chips and sodas at Sam’s club. Our caterer was Cahall’s Deli! We LOVE Cahall’s! We contacted them during the summer to see if they could cater a wedding so close to the holidays and obviously the answer was yes. Later that fall, the owner of Cahall’s passed away in a boating accident. He was well respected by the community and his death came as a shock to everyone. We gave the family and business time to grieve before contacting them in November about still being able to cater our wedding. We didn’t finalize our menu until about two weeks before the wedding, when I had a final head count. We went with sandwiches, cheese trays, veggies trays, and fruit trays because I was worried about seating. I didn’t want to serve food that required two hands to eat just in case some people were eating standing up. It ended up being fine as our number dwindled due to Covid restrictions. Tips for couples: order more food that you think you need. We had TONS of leftovers and it was great being able to take food with us. Also, your numbers will most likely still drop after you have a head count. You will probably have people cancel all the way up to the day of…

            I did not hire anyone for hair and makeup. Including myself, there were four retired Tiger Eyes and one makeup artist. I figured we could do our own hair and makeup, plus help with other girls’ hair and makeup. I was right. Everyone looked absolutely STUNNING! So so proud of our skills!

            Our photographer was the amazing Rylan Smith! She is currently a senior at Mosely High School and she possesses a talent beyond her years. I chose her because she was familiar with our venue and I just loved her editing style. Our videographer was the incredible Ryan English! Ryan is one of the photographers/videographers for the AUMB. I watched his previous wedding videography and loved it! These two were a no brainer. They were both so professional and easy to work with. We highly recommend Ryan and Rylan.

            I know I left some details out. Planning a wedding is already a long process but put Covid restrictions and worries together?! Yeah, it is tough. If anyone reading this would like to hear more deets, comment below! I’d love to hear from you! Honeymoon blog coming soon!

 

<3 - Emma T