COVID-19 Stole My Wedding

About a month ago, friends started calling me about the mysterious coronavirus making its way through parts of China, Italy, and San Francisco — and asked the unthinkable: do you have a back-up plan in case you have to cancel the April 4th wedding?

Cancel the wedding? You mean that big day most every girl dreams of? The one you painstakingly plan and pour your heart into and spend countless hours organizing, reorganizing, scrapping, rebuilding, and tweaking? The wedding day I’ve been so looking forward to sharing with friends and loved ones for months? The wedding where I get to wear that once in a lifetime dress for that once in a lifetime moment? You’re asking me about possibly canceling THAT wedding?

I shrugged it off. I was almost offended. How is that even a thing? This was the illness where symptoms were supposedly mild or undetected for 90% of cases. Those who got severe cases were in the 10% — and of those — even fewer cases were fatal.

As of a month ago, COVID-19 be damned, the show would go on and I would be celebrating with the man I love, our friends and families, in picturesque New Orleans — one of my favorite cities.

But then one morning I woke up and Coronavirus was in NYC, and then it was in the town next door, within walking distance of my home and close to where my daughter goes to school. The number of people infected was on the rise and more people were dying.

Then suddenly Italy shut down, its medical system buckling under the weight of all the people they could not care for, and could not save. The eighth largest economy in the world, a democracy, had ordered itself closed to everyone and everything as doctors shared their stories from the front lines: COVID-19 is no flu.

The news about Italy was scary to be sure, but COVID-19 still hadn’t exploded so violently here in the USA. The wedding would go on!

Then, like dominoes, drastic measures seemed to fall into place at first slowly, and then all at once. San Francisco banned large gatherings; New York closed state colleges, private colleges moved to on-line learning; food was flying off the shelves at supermarkets with lightning speed and toilet paper too for some reason that has yet to be explained; SXSW was cancelled; March Madness would go on but without spectators and the list goes on and on.

I thought this has to be the worst of it. Surely a wedding — my wedding — would be a superb remedy for friends and family so weary of the Coronavirus headlines. And then it happened. President Trump banned travel to the USA for all non-US citizens from Euro-Schengen countries for a month in an effort to curb spread of the virus. This effectively shut out friends and family from abroad whom we so badly wanted there on our big day.

All over social media, friends and acquaintances in the medical field were calling on people to shut themselves in, practice social distancing, cancel everything! The hashtag #flattenthecurve was everywhere — meaning that we could mitigate the speed of infection rate through isolation and therefore not overburden our health system causing another Italy.

I really don’t know what to think of COVID-19. I know it is dangerous for the elderly and the infirm. I know that it has caused great panic and grief across the world. I know that governments everywhere are taking drastic measures to stop the spread. I don’t know if we are overreacting — and who am I to say so, anyway?

On Friday the 13th, the luckiest of all days, we felt we had no choice but to cancel the wedding. Too many of our guests were over 60 — one of the most vulnerable age groups. We had a few guests cancel over COVID-19 fears, but for the most part everyone was still willing and happy to come (those who could enter the country, anyway). Still, the wedding was about a month away and each new day delivered some fresh bit of disastrous news. Even if we went on as planned, there would be a cloud of guilt and sadness and fear hanging over the entire event. Is someone here sick? Are our guests at risk? Are we just irresponsible for holding a wedding in times like these?

Let me tell you: no bride wants to feel “irresponsible” for simply going through with her wedding day. It’s a big deal. It’s one of those pivotal moments you don’t get back. In canceling, we may have flattened the curve, but we also flattened what was to be one of the most important days of my life.

I cried. A lot. I am also working remotely for the next two weeks at least (thanks Corona). I was able to sob openly in the comfort of my own home which helped a bit while I tried to push through work as life came tumbling down around me.

Now begins the process of trying to claw back funds from the vendors. Some have been gracious — others are unwilling to give any of the money back and as you all know, weddings aren’t cheap. Global pandemic and travel restrictions and force majeure circumstances apparently don’t qualify as legitimate reasons for refunds. “Global health crisis” isn’t in the contract, sorry.

I am not sure if we will reschedule our wedding. This whole experience has cost a lot emotionally and financially. I am angry and sad over something I cannot even see or touch and yet it is everywhere. COVID-19 stole my wedding day and it sucks. I don’t get this back — and I am going to selfishly grieve in my state of social distancing — and I am not going to feel guilt or shame over that.