photo: Kimberly Potterf Photography

Like many of you, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that we have been dealing with this COVID pandemic for almost an entire year! This time last year, I was doing the final detailing of a February 28th wedding. Never in my absolute wildest dreams could have braced us for what was about to happen a few short weeks later! Looking back I can remember my first call, then my second, and third and so on from Spring 2020 couples looking to me for the answers. What is happening? What do we do? Will our wedding happen? Confession time… I had no idea. I can remember sobbing day after day throughout the spring as couples had to make the difficult decision to postpone or cancel their wedding plans. I was devastated for them, for their families and for all of us small businesses.

After a few rough months in the beginning, I looked long and hard in the mirror and said NO… I am not going to pivot, I am not going to get a new dream… my dream is to make dreams happen and that is what I am going to do.  So thus we began our journey… love in the time of COVID.

We rolled up our sleeves and started to think safety first and outside the box. What will these new weddings look like. Helping our couples scale down the size of their big day without sacrificing their vision was key. We did have to move a few couples to new venues to take advantage of open air spaces (if you have not checked out The Fives Columbus…what are you waiting for- go now!)  

We were able to keep the designs we had worked so hard on in tact, adapt to using real time guest messaging and communication tools, and most importantly follow the guidelines and mandates set by our Governor. What did we learn? Weddings can happen, and they can happen safely.

We had a lot of couple opt to get married on their original wedding date celebrating alongside parents and siblings. I hate the new industry coined term micro-wedding. A wedding is the ceremony between two people so to me, it has always been micro. Am I right? When I look back at the photos from these ceremonies, all I see is happiness, perseverance, and most of all… Love in the time of COVID.