To be able to plan a perfect wedding, our wedding planners advised us to plan for it a year in advance. We heeded their advice, however life is unpredictable, and the world was hit by covid-19.
Our big day was planned to fall on autumn, as shown on our invitation cards. Alas, on the day we had planned to send out our invitation cards, circuit breaker was announced.
Planning for our big day in the midst of a pandemic was tough, and we were stopped in our tracks of planning and sending out invitations. We were faced with an unserene amount of problems, such as the number of wedding guest allowed being reduced repeatedly, our budget airline flight to Taipei for our wedding photoshoot being cancelled, and refunds for everything were horrendously hard to attain.
We decided to hire a photographer to shoot our wedding pictures in Singapore since we did not see any light at the end of the tunnel then. Due to circuit breaker going on, we had to stay in our house, and naturally, online photoshoots were out of the question. After months of waiting for phase 2, we were finally allowed out of the house, only to meet torrential rains and monsoon seasons. We only realised that the photographer was relatively new in his industry on the day of the shoot and as expected, the end products turned out less than desirable. With many frustrations, we had to make do with what we had and used editing and photoshop to salvage as many photographs as we could. I mean, it is once in a lifetime event, isn’t it?
There were many what-ifs on our minds. What if we insisted on pushing forward with the wedding? What if we chose to postpone the wedding? We would be subjected to incur costs so huge as business owners were inflexible in dealing with cancellations. What if no Justice of the Peace was available to solemnise our matrimony? What if we still had no wedding attire and bands by then?
Another problem was the amount of questions from friends and relatives on whether we were still continuing as planned if maximum number of attendees still remained at a low ten. Unable to shop for the wedding essentials, we were pushed to either make online purchases or think out of the box.
Naturally, many guests also contacted us to exclude them from the final guest count, as they feared it would be unsafe and preferred to stay at home instead. We had planned to invite a few overseas guests but it could not materialise either.
We decided to push ahead with our wedding event. Although it was a simple affair due to the covid-19 restrictions, it was a success. We were disallowed to screen our photoshoot slideshow, to play music for our solemnisation as well as the music for the first serving of the banquet dish. It was all fine, really. We were thankful enough.
On the actual day, we were joined by our loved ones. Our family members and friends all congratulated us and praised us for being able to plan this though the hard times. For those who could not come, they sent their well wishes and gifts.
We were very appreciative and touched at the sincerity and heartfeltness of our guests, and we were overjoyed to have them on our special day. Even though there was covid-19, restrictions and so many more problems, we faced them together to have a smooth, and perfect wedding.
At the end of the day, our advice to couples who are planning their weddings is to go ahead with the wedding plans as scheduled. Be adaptive and deal with the changes as they come so that they will not be overwhelmed with any lemons this crisis throws at them.