Readers may recall that I got engaged to my girlfriend of five years last September.
Since then, there has been plenty of wedding planning to keep my fiancée and me busy in the evenings and on the weekends. It didn’t take long for us to realize preparing a wedding from scratch would by no means be a small task.
Nine months since our engagement, the wedding is now less than a month away, and we’re ironing out the final kinks. Thankfully, all the big-ticket items – finding a venue, caterer, marriage commissioner, photographer, etc. – have been completed.
I’m excited for the big day. We’ve prepared what I feel has elements of both a traditional wedding and an alternative celebration that is more in tune with our interests. For instance, we’ve always been a big “games” couple, so in lieu of traditional wedding entertainment, we’ll provide guests an assortment of lawn and table games, such as Giant Jenga, Crokinole and Can-Jam.
I say ‘we,’ have planned a fantastic celebration, but really, most of the credit should go to my fiancée, who has taken on the bulk of the planning to date. While I tried to chime in with recommendations and suggestions early on, I quickly learned wedding planning is not my forté. The puzzled and incredulous look I received after asking, ‘Do we really need a caterer?’ was probably the point where I realized my input should be kept to a minimum.
Thankfully, some of our friends had also taken the plunge into engagement this year, so we have been able to ask them questions and trade ideas back and forth as we all planned out our respective weddings.
Planning a wedding during the COVID-19 pandemic has admittedly been quite stressful, as there was no way of knowing what public health restrictions would look like come July. With the pandemic still in full swing throughout the entire process, we had to come up with multiple contingencies, including different sized guest lists and fallback options in case Alberta was going to shut down again. Until the government’s reopening plan was announced in late May, we operated under the assumption that we would not even be able to have our friends in attendance.
Ultimately, I am pleased with what we’ve put together and I’m relieved that Stage 3 of Alberta’s reopening plan allows us to have a full-fledged wedding. I am crossing my fingers that Alberta’s vaccination rollout will continue to keep COVID-19 case counts low, so we don’t have to move back into Stage 2 of the reopening plan.
While our wedding will be far from extravagant and our guest list is of a moderate size, it will be a fun celebration and an exciting way to enter into this stage of life. I’m looking forward to seeing my fiancée walk down the aisle.
