DEAR 2020 BRIDES

Sending you the biggest hug… we’ve got this!

I want to start by saying I have felt guilty for weeks about being upset over our wedding. “There is too much happening in the world right now for you to feel upset about your wedding day” is something I have told myself often.

Although there is some truth there, in hindsight your wedding is one of the biggest days in your life as my girls remind me, and you shouldn’t feel ashamed to feel sad about your wedding being cancelled. Feeling sad about your wedding day doesn’t make you selfish, it doesn’t mean you are not appreciating the current pandemic, it makes you human.

I am writing this on what is suppose to be our wedding weekend. Our wedding was scheduled for 20th April 2020 in our home away from home, the South of Spain, with 60 of our closest friends and family.

We booked our wedding in November after getting engaged in Bali in the March. Initially we were undecided on whether to just do a last minute escape and go ‘little white chapel Vegas style’ but after stumbling across our dream venue on a family trip to Spain we knew instantly we had to do it there!

Being the last minute duo we are we didn’t want a long run up so Spring 2020 was perfect giving us 5 months to plan. I was told by everyone 5 months was CRAZY but I would absolutely recommend it if you are a faffer like me it makes you more decisive as you don’t have time to dwell on the little things.

After securing the venue in November, January we were there to do our tasting, followed by a March visit to finalize everything 6 weeks before. We chose our flowers, met with our vendors, and purchase all the little touches. The Coronavirus was around but our venue was completely chilled and gave us all the confidence our wedding day would still go to plan.

The following 6 weeks, bringing us up to this weekend, have been a whirlwind to say the least.

Once we arrived home excited for the run up – everything started to spiral. Within a week of arriving home Spain went into lock down. It took us 2 weeks of monitoring the situation before we had to come to terms with the fact we would have to cancel.

We opened a bottle of Champagne, drafted out a message to update our guests, and sent! The 2 week run up to cancelling was 10 x worse than the day we cancelled. That limbo phase, which I’m sure a lot of you are in right now, is the hardest part. Once you make your decision and get your message out to guests its like a weight has been lifted.

In our message we included that October 2020 is on hold with our venue but we will confirm nearer the time after monitoring the situation over the next few months whether this will go ahead. It was important to us to postpone rather than completely cancel, not only because we have a house full of wedding stuff!!!, but because we have imagined that day at that venue with those people for the past 5 months (longer I’m sure for most of you) and it is important to us we get to live it!

I am not a bridey person. We considered eloping. I haven’t read one bride magazine. I bought my dress in a sample sale with my mum in and out in an hour. We didn’t send invites (we did a Whatsapp Photo Invite) but if this situation has taught me one thing… it’s that your Wedding Day is actually more special to you than you may think – even if you are not the typical bridey bride.

If we are lucky enough to get our special day in October, we won’t be taking anything for granted and will absolutely celebrate our day 10 x harder with all our people than we would have in April .

When your wedding weekend hits and if you are still in isolation… celebrate it! It was important to me that we didn’t just brush it off and treat it as a normal weekend, that we actually celebrate our weekend! Our meant to be wedding weekend date will be with us for life… so lets give it a good memory.

It’s a roller coaster of emotions. “We would be heading the beach club right now”, “they would be getting to the airport now” happens a lot. Your guests checking in on you sending lovely messages, depending how you are feeling at the time of receiving they can be read and smiled at, or read and ugly cried at (on my part – I am a crier).

To celebrate we opted for an Isolation date day – we dressed up (shop my dress here), cooked together (in our non existent kitchen on our plug in hob), drank champagne and played one of the playlists we had created for the wedding. The evening was made complete by my Maid of Honour organizing a zoom call with us to play a slideshow she had created with video messages our guests had sent her toasting to us from home. The perfect ending to a lovely day!

I wanted to share my story as I know there are so many of us in this position and wanted to let you know we are in this together.

I understand it’s also a stressful time for you newly engaged gals wanting to plan their weddings but not able to view venues etc! One of my besties got engaged in March and is in this position. One thing I’m sure all us postponed brides will advise… don’t get hung up on the little things! When I got on that flight back from Spain in March I was stressing about table decorations and name cards… oh what I would give to have been able to go ahead with our April wedding with no name cards or table decorations… I know our day would have been just as special.

Please reach out below with your stories if you are a postponed 2020 bride and get chatting to each other! We are all in this together…

Lots of love and hugs,

Ashley x