Making it Legal Anyway
Ugh. COVID-19. Breaking the hearts of so many brides + grooms + folks who were ready to party & celebrate love this year. But, as a person who had both my dream wedding and an intimate legalopment (you know, where you get legally married just the two of you) I can personally say
a wedding with your people & an elopement
are both absolute magic
& neither takes away anything from the other
so if you need to postpone your wedding this year, maybe you want to consider signing the legal paperwork on the same day with just you (and maybe with an officiant, some takeaway, some flowers, your vow book and different shoes in your same dress (I cut my skirt short)) anyway.
Getting married is all about “in sickness & in health” through good times and in bad.
And it turns out it’s also about not killing each other in your 600 squarefoot apartment while you’re both working from home. And figuring out how to share instructions about videoconference technology over the phone to your 92 year old grandma. And keeping each other sane while the world goes through an actual pandemic. And comforting one another as you find out your mom isn’t allowed to fly in from out of town.
Getting married when times are tough can be what getting married is all about.
Kyle and I had our party and it was the best. Looking around and seeing our people who were there, standing shoulder to shoulder as we committed to each and promised “I will honour our community and my role within it” was just it. And I wouldn’t change it for the world. But we also had a little courthouse room where we said the legal commitment piece and then stood in a field with just 4 other people and said the same promises again. That second part, in the field -was coming off one of the hardest times in my life, and that was just it too. So you know what? I wouldn’t change that for the world either.
Right now, we need to honour our community and our role within it. And right now that role is to stay away from one another, and that sucks, but:
you just have to postpone the wedding, not the joy.
There’s equal
(but totally different)
joy in both ways of committing and celebrating.
The party & the quiet space together.
I’m so bummed for you that if you have to postpone your wedding right now. It’s the worst.
But there’s also something so special available for you right now too - a promise you can make when the chips are down and the times are tough, and isn’t that really why you wanted to get married in the first place?
