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I’ve always been someone who didn’t really want a long engagement. I thought just over a year was plenty of time to get planning and still wanted to be just as excited throughout that time. From the moment Adam & I were engaged, I was right in the planning stages. Well… let’s be honest, the Pinterest board existed before Adam. I’ve just always loved weddings and was just waiting for my Prince Charming. To get cheesy for a second… he really is my perfect other half!

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In less than a month, we’d chosen the date, booked the venue & met with the photographer. October 30, 2020 was going to be our date. The perfect Fall wedding which fell outside of golf season (my fiancé is a golf pro so it mattered!). I’d even sent out these gorgeous save the dates with a fridge magnet to those who were coming from overseas. The thing is…. None of us could have predicted the global pandemic which would prevent all travel, stop large events and threaten the safety of our families.

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Travel challenges for family & friends

Now many of you are probably wondering why we’ve already postponed, when at the time of writing this, we’re still a couple of months out. We’re in Phase 3 and many options are now opening up for larger gatherings. Our biggest challenge was that the majority of my family live overseas. I’m originally from a little island called Guernsey, which is now thankfully COVID-19 free! Travel to and from Guernsey is still very restricted without a 14 day isolation and Canada also has that 14 day isolation in place. So that would mean 4 weeks isolation in total for anyone travelling in for the wedding…. Not an option. My parents are included in that, and we couldn’t have a wedding without them there.

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Deciding to postpone

As time went on and the pandemic in the USA & UK continued to be out of control, we just felt that the weight of the Pandemic would be too much of a focus of the day. Instead of it being excitement about the day, the conversations were all about “are you going to postpone?” This is not something a future bride wants to hear

Going through the postponement process

We were honestly so impressed with every single vendor we spoke to about postponing our wedding. I was very aware that many of these people had been without work as part of the lockdown and so incomes were already strained.

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I decided to focus on my priorities when it came to rescheduling as I knew 2021 dates were filling up fast. I started by contacting the Venue Coordinators of Niagara Parks. Even though they were running on reduced staffing, they got back to me so quickly. I’d provided options of 4 dates, a Friday & Saturday in June 2021 and October 2021. We were fortunate that all of the dates were still available at the time. My next priority was the Photographer, Gemini Photography. I’d been following Angela for years and fell in love with her romantic, soft photographs – she’s so talented! Angela was also super understanding and was still available for 3 of the dates. So we decided on 04 June 2021.

Now this is where being super organized in the first place did not make it easy on me. I then had to go through and find everything else I’d booked and try to move it over to the new date. We were so fortunate that almost everyone else was able to move the contracts over to the new dates. We were disappointed to have to let go of our amazing florist, It’s Bloomin’ Lovely. If you’re looking for a florist, I’d 100% recommend Rhiannon. She came highly recommended by a few people and again, in a time where financial situations are tough, she still gave us back our deposit. We were so fortunate to not be out of pocket for any of the money we’d already put down!

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So here we are….

Like many others we’re now hoping and waiting. We know our day will come soon. We’re just patiently waiting to see whether restrictions will be lifted and whether our wedding will look the same as we’d first imagined it. We’re not sure what we’ll do if restrictions are still on…. But we’re too far in the future to even guess at this point!

We’re both very thankful for our good health, our ability to work and that all of our families are safe. That’s our focus for right now.

Here’s to June 4, 2021!

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