What My Pandemic Wedding Taught Me About Perfection
Why we need to remove the pressure to craft a flawless ‘big-day’
When I first got engaged in 2019, I was naive to most elements of planning a wedding. I was planning a good year in advance, yet the messages I received all seemed to suggest to me that I was far always far behind.
Once the pandemic hit, all my efforts to keep up and plan ahead started to feel like shackles — I had planned so much that I was stuck with inflexible investments and expectations when the unexpected hit. But after the dust settled and we could see Covid’s full effects, I am now grateful for the lessons I’ve learned.
With this new pandemic-borne perspective, I can now see a little more clearly the harms that can come from a focus on perfectionism.
Navigating imperfect choices
When I started planning my wedding in 2019, I was overwhelmed by the requirements and pressures I felt.
The venue? It should have been booked a year and a half in advance.
The dress? That needs to be chosen at least eight months in advance, to allow it to be perfectly made, shipped, and tailored in time.
I couldn’t help but be sucked into the fear and fanfare of it all.
But then, the unavoidable happened. When I was still half a year away from my ‘big day’ and had paid half of the fees owed (already double what I’d hoped to pay at all), the pandemic hit, putting our day and that of millions of other couples around the world on hold.
The fact is, wedding planning is poorly designed for one evergreen reality in life — the unknown. We know the unexpected happens. And this is certainly what happened to me.
When I turned to seek advice on what my options were, and was presented with an array of painful choices. No contract protected me for unexpected hurdles like this, with prevalent Force Majeure/‘Act of God’ clauses providing no routes for refunds for hard-won investments in the event your day can’t happen.
Most couples are now at the mercy of unpredictable government mandates and individual vendors’ choices, losing deposits, scrambling to reschedule, or lost in the shuffle.
From all this, I have felt the pain of many couples and vendors itching to understand how to navigate a field of imperfect choices.
I have also learned that the feelings of pressure can benefit from a heavy dose of pandemic perspective, drawing a few lessons around how the industry might transform for a post-Covid world.
1. Wedding days are not ‘everything,’ no matter what the industry says
It is hard not get to swept up in the social and commercial pressures of a ‘perfect day.’
While I liked to consider myself a somewhat measured person, it was hard not to become swept up in the fanfare and delight of the idea of designing a dream day. While it started with fun, Pinterest boards, hair trials, and cocktail chats with friends, it ended in more sinister places.
First, it was judgment from wedding dress seamstresses suggesting I could ‘lose just a few pounds’ to make it into their perfect sample size, rather than sizing up.
Then it was a makeup artist tut-tutting under her breath about how many layers of concealer were needed to cover those ‘pesky’ bags under my eyes during my makeup trial, looking towards me under furrowed brows whispering ‘that won’t do’ when her initial layers of makeup did not suffice.
I was experiencing all of this while inching further beyond my budget, handing out money to fix problems I never knew I had.
This left me with diminishing returns when a crisis hit and my priorities changed, finding myself with a bruised self-esteem and a thinner wallet rather than the inflated senses of joy I had hoped to create.
2. Booking and paying without protections for life events often more than a year in advance should not be the norm
I was told I was lucky to snap up my dream venue in London a year in advance.
At the time, my parents and I toasted with prosecco to our good fortune, happily signing on the dotted line and paying huge deposits to secure the space.
When Covid hit, the feeling of booking and investing in something so far in advance hit me deep in the pit of my stomach.
We had wedding insurance, but it didn’t cover pandemics. We were suddenly facing imperfect choices all with different financial and personal impacts.
We’ve learned life is unpredictable — crises — personal, national, and global can hit.
When processes, contracts, and processes are not built to handle these issues individuals can lose out big.
Looking back, I wish I would have considered the risks and rewards of investing so far in advance.
I wish I would have been enveloped in an industry that better understood these dynamics and one that didn’t require and inspire such a sense of urgency around what is marketed as a ‘special’ and ‘perfect’ day.
3. The industry focuses too much on the bride, when it should be about couples and families
Like many, but certainly not all couples, I was quite involved in much of the planning, arranging many of the aesthetic elements while my partner focused on a few key elements such as food and wine, and organizing his side of the family.
I joined Facebook groups for ‘brides to be’, was inundated by marketing events for ‘brides only’, and enjoyed the glow of the ‘bride’ label for a little while.
The title that came with prestige, ended up compounding the pressure.
While I have enjoyed many aspects of wedding planning, I have not enjoyed the pressure that women face. I found vendors immediately turned to me, rather than my partner when asking important questions, seeming to assume the bride in the room held the cards.
When the pandemic hit, our decisions were thrust into a much better equilibrium.
No longer was I a lone bride on a mission to craft and execute on our plans.
When it came down to it, our decisions needed to be equal and joint about crisis management.
We learned that the effects of our event changes on friends and family, and the potential financial impacts of our decisions including on our vendors, were decisions best made jointly. Looking back, I wish this sense of equality and shared responsibility and authority was better fostered by our environment from the start.
4. When crises happen, weddings can too
While I am waiting to progress my plans, I have been encouraged by the number of couples that have managed to move forward in creative ways focused on celebrating love and commitment through the worst pandemic in a generation.
Elopements, micro weddings, and other innovative approaches have helped thrust to front-of-frame the importance of focusing on what matters to us all: love, health, and happiness.
I am optimistic that a post-Covid world will treat everyone in the ecosystem of love and commitment with greater grace, flexibility, and dignity. We’ve learned a little more about what is important, and I hope we can find a gentler way to shape the industry and celebrate love in the future.
Takeaways
One of the biggest lessons I have learned from the experience so far has been to step back from the pressure of designing a perfect day.
Sure, we can try to plan our ideal lives, from careers to family life and beyond but ultimately, we are sent curveballs, and we need to be prepared to take them in stride.
I have also learned how important it is to be a little kinder and gentler to the people around us, regardless of how ‘normal’ life may seem. When a crisis hits, so many ripple effects can occur without warning — over-planning for life events can sometimes lead to more harm than good.
I’ve seen how my family and friends, as well as many small businesses, have been impacted by the crisis in so many ways, providing me with the precious gift of perspective.
Like most parts of our lives, planning our life events can be complex and multi-dimensional. Just as days in the future can be planned, they can also be interrupted in big and small ways.
Perhaps the best we can do in return is to try our best to avoid the traps of the pursuit of ‘perfection,’ and enjoy the days we have, whatever shape they may take.
