Isabelle here! I’m so excited to finally share some of the wedding details with you. It’s split up into two posts: today I’ll cover all things DIY, prep and safety because #covid. The next post will talk about vendors and final thoughts.

Invitations

This was the part Amanda was probably most excited about as she enjoys paper crafts. We had sort of come up with the theme/colors/design before COVID put everything on hold and when things finally started to move forward we had to decide what type of invites to send. Ultimately we (read: Amanda) really loved the designs we (read: Amanda) had come up with and wanted to still send those out.

The compromise was to do the regular invitation and then add in a card with RSVP information and an explanation about how this year would be different, sending everyone to the website that walked guests through the plan. When we set up the guest list on the website, we could designate whether people were invited to come to the in person ceremony & reception this year OR view it online. All guests were also invited to join us next year for a reception (more on that later). As each guest RSVP’d, they would see what they had been invited to and could respond accordingly…

*WARNING* This did not work very well. Best laid plans… Ultimately it seems that some people just thought things were going forward as planned or were confused about whether they were invited in person or not (our best guess is because it looked like a normal invite and the RSVP card was small, so perhaps it should have been more dramatically different from a regular wedding invite). We are seeing popular options of sending 2020’s version of save-the-dates in the form of “oops it’s not happening the way we thought” (not sure if there is a catchy name for those yet). Perhaps this might have cleared up the confusion, but considering this whole year has been confusing, it’s understandable that really, no one knew what to expect or was used to getting a choose-your-own-adventure invite like this.

Ultimately they were still really pretty though so… #worthit

Decorations

Overall we kept it pretty simple for a variety of reasons this year. First of all, the venue was gorgeous and outside, so it didn’t need much help! The ceremony backdrop was beautiful so we focused on adding decorations to the aisle, which was especially needed because we spaced chairs out and had a seating chart for each family unit (really happy with this decision and is what we would recommend for COVID weddings). With all the extra gaps, it was nice to have the decorations to emphasize the aisle.

As for the reception, for practical reasons we weren’t having dinner served at long tables like we originally planned, instead opting for picnic blankets and individual picnic baskets, which turned out to be pretty fun. Again, highly recommend during this time where extra precaution is important for everyone’s safety. To make it feel a bit special, we added some ribbon and flowers to the baskets, which also got repurposed for the dessert boxes. Bridesmaid bouquets were used as centerpieces on the few tables we had set up (as an alternative to the blankets for anyone who needed that option) and the aisle decorations were also brought over to the reception area and placed around.

Wedding party

We’re so glad that the trend of letting bridesmaids pick out their own dress is still happening (one of the things Amanda talks about in her 10 year wedding update - she wishes this was popular back then!). The main wedding color was a dusty French blue with accents of green and light pink/peach from the floral arrangements. Amanda helped organize this part by creating a Pinterest board showcasing the blue color palette and links directly to dresses that fit the range.

Rather than try to find dresses that were all the same color, we actually opted to do a variety of shades in the same tone. As each person picked a dress they sent pictures to the group so we could keep track. It took a bit of coordinating to make sure one person wasn’t going to randomly stick out, but overall it worked out that half wanted a medium shade and half wanted dark. I did have 6 bridesmaids, but because of COVID only 4 could come because 2 are international. Somehow it actually worked out that one of them had picked medium and one had picked dark and the day of the wedding the colors were still half and half. We love how the pictures turned out! *also, Amanda would like to note that one of the international bridesmaids was also going to have some sparkles on the top of her dress, so this wasn’t supposed to be a special snowflake moment*

We’ll be honest, the most fun part for us is all the girl stuff, but we want to make sure to cover our experience with the suits for the groomsmen. We got some sample fabrics from a couple websites and picked out grey suits from Generation Tux where they could each order from. Definitely make sure to have them order early and try it on! A few of them needed to exchange pieces. We asked them to wear brown shoes, which could be something they owned or there was an option to rent from the same site. After a decent amount of hunting we were able to find ties in the right color, which we purchased for them to keep as well as socks, just for fun.

Rehearsal

Ironically, this was possibly one of the most stressful parts to figure out with constant last-minute changes up to the day before - we had a Plan A, B, C… but in the end it worked out. The biggest challenge was that the rules kept changing, what felt like almost daily, for what restaurants were and weren’t allowed to do. Obviously this is way less of a problem than the actual wedding itself, but we wanted to be able to do *something* for our wedding party and family. Skipping all the boring (and stressful) details, the restaurant where we had planned to have an outside, spaced out meal was able to pivot and package the food individually to-go. We went to a park with enough picnic tables, spread ourselves out and made the best of it!

Keeping guests in the loop

Sending email updates about in-person safety was important to keep everyone on the same page, we sent out updates to those attending in-person a week before so that everyone had time to review and prepare.

We did have some technical issues sending out the live video link for the wedding, some of the emails we sent via our RSVP website worked just fine and others didn’t. Overall, we hope this technology will continue to improve and our best recommendation is to pre-appoint someone (who has a computer and access to your accounts) to be your tech support day-of just in case.

Invitations

Decorations

Wedding party

Rehearsal

Keeping guests in the loop

Next time we’ll cover more specific vendor info, thoughts on next year and what we learned!

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