Who else is disappointed about their Covid wedding?

Hey Kari, I'm not in your exact situation per se, but that totally sucks, and I would be pissed/disappointed/sad too! You're right - getting married is an important day/event in life, and it didn't go at all like you/probably anyone in your situation would have hoped. On top of the pandemic, the drastically reduced guest list, you had to stray from your ideal back-up plan (it sounds like it would have been just the 2 of you eloping and having total freedom and autonomy) to try to include your families (who ended up being uncomfortable in real life and in photos, and inadvertently also added complexity because of the logistics). I'm sorry you went through that. Your feelings are super valid, and it sounds like there are several people who commented already that experienced similar situations themselves. A bit of a side note, and this is a smaller point in the grand scheme of things, but I think it is important: I'm sorry that you, the bride, had to share mirror/getting ready time with others?!?!? Like what?? I would have hoped that others would have been like "hey, what time are you planning get ready? 9am? Cool, we'll all be out of the bathroom by 8am, and then we'll put on some jams, pour some mimosas, and make a breakfast casserole. Let us know how else we can help, because this is your day, and we are glad to be here celebrating with you." (In my mind, that's how it should be, and that's how I treat other people's wedding days!) I'm also sorry that you had some not-so-on-point responses to a very specific question on the forum: who else is disappointed about their covid wedding? You clearly acknowledged that there are lots of people who found happiness, joy, and even relief in their covid wedding/back-up plan to their original vision for their wedding......and there are lots of threads on this forum dedicated to that topic.....but this thread was supposed to be dedicated to plans that went awry and the resulting feelings and impacts. I'm hoping the off-key responses weren't intentional....like I can't imagine that a 2020 bride or groom would intentionally come on here and be like "oh your wedding went totally sideways and you're disappointed? ok cool, well mine was awesome, and here's why......" but that's probably how it came across. I would have probably felt super alienated after coming to a specific forum to ask a specific question...and then getting an inflammatory, non-validating (in fact, whatever the opposite of validating is!) answer. You're doing everything right, and you're trying to work through this in the absolute right way. Sending you a big virtual hug through this post!!!

I was at first when I knew a few people who got married with lots of people and had their dream wedding around the same time I did.


I look back today and I am grateful I have 25 people instead of my original 125. I had my wedding at my parents house instead of at a fancy venue. I kept my family and friends safe by having limited guest and hand sanitizing stations every (thanks mom). I was on cloud nine with my husband. Every time I go back to my parents house I think of that day I walked with my father out the front door across the front lawn to my husband. I would not change it for anything.
I was able to spend time with everyone of our guests. My husband and I have said if we have 125 people to see in the 4 hours we had we would of only spent 2 to 5 minutes with them. My husband and I enjoyed ourselves 100%. Our family and friends where safe. That's all we care about.
Am I sad that COVID didn't allow me to experience bridal shower, bachelor party, and more. Yes! But I know that it was necessary to keep the people I love safe.

View Quoted Comment Good for you, but you completely missed the point of this thread.

View Quoted Comment No I did not I am allow to say I made the best of the situation. Am I upset I did not have the fairy tale wedding? Yes. Am I going to dwell of it no! I am married!

View Quoted Comment Thank you so so much! It’s been an incredibly difficult year (part of the reason we went thru with our elopement and included our parents was that my mom was diagnosed with cancer just 10 days before we were supposed to get married and have our big happy wedding). I just can’t shake feeling like we really missed out and I feel like I’m often grieving the wedding that should have been. I felt so excited about the future before and now feel filled with worry. It’s just really hard. I’m trying to focus on the good things (like finding the most amazing life partner) but of course that doesn’t mean the negative doesn’t impact me as well. I really appreciate your support!

During Covid and other times, disappointing things happen. It is completely normal to feel upset, sad, mad and all other types of feelings. You should acknowledge to yourself that this is a normal human reaction and that there is nothing wrong with feeling this way. It happened, you can't make it unhappen.

The wedding you never had is forever preserved in your mind as perfect and wonderful. Would it have turned out that way? No one can say. Many people find their dream wedding day a disappointment for different reasons. But this perfect ideal in your mind is hard competition for the underwhelming experience you went through.

In time you will take the steps to lessen the disappointment. It will begin to sting less and you may be able to look at the events of the day in a kinder light. You may never find the joy in your wedding day, but the joy in your marriage (and future good events) will begin to slowly overtake the negative emotions.

One of the things that stood out in your post was that you felt that you had really missed out; "they" say planning for a future goal can really help move this process along. So if you have a vacation, a special occasion, life event, career advancement or skill that you are interested in....this could be the time to focus on that.

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I actually never had this "dream, perfect wedding" in mind, but I did expect my wedding to feel like a celebration and it didn't. Much of the things I had been looking forward to - a big vacation/honeymoon, starting a family with my husband - have been marred by Covid. I'm satisfied where I am in my career and wanted to set my sights on growing our family, which now has additional risks and complications because of Covid. So right now it is very difficult to feel hopeful about the future.

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Yes, you did completely miss the point of this thread. I'm the OP, so I know what the intention was.

There are many other threads where you can share the joy you feel about your wedding. This thread is to support the women who don't have such positive associations with their wedding day and rubbing in how great your wedding was, even if not what you planned, is NOT what this thread is about. Your comments are disrespectful to the brides and grooms looking for support. Saying "my wedding wasn't what I wanted but it was amazing anyway and turned out even better than the wedding we originally planned" completely invalidates the feelings of those who don't feel their day was "amazing anyway."

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Thank you so much for your empathy. I just feel like we had this window of time to have this beautiful event and it was stolen from us. My mom was diagnosed with cancer just 10 days before our wedding was supposed to be, which is why went ended up going the route we did. Shortly after the wedding my husband's aunt passed. If we are going to have a kid we need to conceive within the next year or so, which just feels like so much pressure, and I'm so much more anxious about it because of Covid. The vaccines have not been tested on pregnant or breast feeding women at all but we can't just push things off much longer, so that makes being an "at risk" pregnancy even riskier. I feel like I've already lost either way. Every time I think about our "redo" wedding I wonder if we'd even enjoy it or it would be worth it if I'm pregnant or we have a baby that will be occupying so much of our time, energy, and financial resources. When we got engaged I felt filled with so much hope and excitement about our future and now I just feel so sad and the hope feels gone. I am confident things will be better in a few years but by then our window to try for a biological child will be gone, and it hurts so much to think this two year blip was timed just perfectly enough to derail all of this pivotal moments for us. We might never have a wedding celebration or a baby, or it feels like if we get one it will immediately mean the elimination of the other. So I just feel stuck and unable to move forward and it's hard to feel excited about those things anymore.

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Thanks for sharing Monica. Originally we thought we could do a redo and we managed to line up all of our vendors for June 2021. Now, because of the vaccine rollout our venue has let us know that they don't anticipate being able to hold an event like the one we planned in June, so we need to push back further if we still want to have our wedding celebration. I'm 35 and my husband and I wanted to try for a baby, so while we normally would have started trying a bit earlier, when Covid happened and we set our "redo wedding date" we decided to wait until right around now to start trying, thinking if we conceived in December/January I would be at most 6 months pregnant in June. That way we could still enjoy our wedding, albeit with me not drinking, finding a different dress, and probably dancing a lot less. At this point, I don't think we can push off trying to conceive much longer so any date we pick could interfere with a baby, and it's just stressful. I really hoped we'd be "past" the wedding when we were focusing on starting our family, and I think once we have a baby we just won't be able to enjoy our wedding the way we would have pre-sleepless nights and being responsible for a little human being. I just don't know if the expense will be worth it at that point and I imagine it will feel pretty frivolous to spend all we saved for our wedding once we have a little one. Now I feel like I'm being forced to choose between celebrating our marriage with our friends or starting a family, and it doesn't feel like those two things are very compatible. It may turn out that we can't conceive or don't right away, but emotionally juggling those things feels very heavy. Added on top of that, the Covid vaccine has not been tested on pregnant or breast feeding women, and our parents are high risk, so I feel like we won't be able to have a "normal" wedding at all until everyone can be vaccinated, and if we conceive I might be unable to be vaccinated until years from now. So it all still feels very abstract, very far away, and somewhat of a fantasy. I think the most challenging part is that we were so close - we had everything planned and Covid happened just a couple months before our wedding (we already had invites in the mail), so it just feels really painful. I've waited nearly 30 years to find my person, and we were just two months away from our wedding and starting our lives together and now it feels like everything is on hold, and this small window we had to have our wedding, do one last "big" trip together, and start a family has been completely shut down by Covid. My mom was diagnosed with cancer just 10 days before our wedding was supposed to be, and my husband's aunt passed shortly after, and our parents are in their 70s and have preexisting medical conditions so it feels like our opportunity to celebrate with them may be fleeting as well. It's just really bad timing for us.

View Quoted Comment Hi Kari! I am so sorry this is happening to you. It sounds like a very difficult choice that you shouldn't have to make. We were going to start trying as well after our wedding (I'm 31) and now that has been pushed back so I know what that feels like!
I'm such a planner and it feels like you might be as well and that's what I think is the hardest part of this. With covid and also with babies, everything is up in the air! You might get pregnant immediately or it might take a while. And when covid is going to go away /everyone being vaccinated is anyone's guess. That uncertainty is very hard. I wish I had better advice for you or could be more helpful! Just know that you're not alone going through this and that your feelings are valid! Best of luck to you and fingers crossed for a healthy pregnancy and baby soon, if that's what you decide! ❤️

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Thank you Monica. I wish I could be a few years younger and have more time on my side. I have so many friends who have struggled to conceive, including some who have been trying for years and done multiple rounds of IVF. My husband and I are on the same page - we want to try to have a baby and are accepting of if its not in the cards for us but want to feel like we gave it a fair shot, which is at least a full year of trying. Ideally we'd have more time but I really don't want to be older than 36 when we have a baby so we pretty much need to start now. It just feels so unfair - we didn't rush our relationship, we wanted to be married before having a baby, and wanted to be set up financially before bringing another life into the world. We did everything right, and now I feel like I need to choose between being able to get the Covid vaccine or having a baby (and waiting at least a full year or more to be able to be vaccinated), and whether to have a baby during a pandemic and I feel completely alone, or having a baby when I'm even older and the risks are higher (did you know that at age 35 you are considered to have a "geriatric pregnancy"). And also I have to do this knowing my husband won't be able to go to appointments with me and won't be able to experience that part of becoming a dad, ever, and that our parents, who we anticipated helping us when we had a newborn, likely won't be able to see the baby or help at all (they're in their 70's and high risk, with my mom's cancer and his dad's multiple medical issues including heart disease). It's just such a lonely, isolating feeling. I know I'm not the only one going through this but it feels like it. It just feels so unfair. I feel like had a 2 year pandemic happened at nearly any other time in my life it would not have been as negatively impactful as it has been this past year and will be until everyone is vaccinated and life returns to normal. And I feel like once things return to normal and we start going to weddings again and our younger friends start having babies I'll very much feel this sense of loss for a long time, as I see all of these other people (wonderful, well deserving people) experience all these things that were robbed from us. I just don't want to look back on all of this years from now and still be bitter.

I can see why you would be disappointed, especially if you had planned certain things and weren’t able to have it how you pictured it, but definitely not being able to hug family would be odd at a wedding. We had to postpone from August 2020 to June 2021, and I don’t think it will happen in June, I’m not getting my hopes up and not being able to be excited about my wedding sucks. It’s “destination” for guests but in a country I was born/raised in, so home for me, and because it is over seas given travel restrictions I don’t think they’ll be lifted by June, and it’s non refundable and we can’t afford something here so would most likely elope at that point, which is a bummer.

Dude.. I'm mad that my engagement was during covid and I won't be able to do any traditional showers or parties!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So you go ahead and be disappointed! You can be elated to be married AND still disappointed in the original ceremony.. frankly, that does not sound enjoyable for anyone..! I haven't seen if you are doing a vow renewal but if not- you totally deserve one next year or whenever it's safe and people can celebrate and not look tortured lol. I know it's not funny but I feel your pain and my situation isn't even as bad so no, you are totally allowed to feel that way but also make sure you make up for it and throw yourself a beautiful celebration when you can! It doesn't even have to be on your original day..

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(Also, my friend is an ER doctor in her third trimester and she is getting the vaccine. So talk with an OBGYN! - Again, I am NOT a doctor.. but she is! )

View Quoted Comment Dear Kayse:


I hope your wedding turned out beautiful today, with no regrets. I totally understand how you feel because my original wedding date was June 27, 2020. I had to postponed my special day to August 23 because both my fiancée and I got sick. Then, I had to postpone it again to December 5, but that fell through because my father died on November 28 of Covid and we buried him on December 17. Once again, I am postponing my wedding to January 23, 2021 because I had already invested a large sum of money into it, and I would have to renew my marriage license if I move it back any further.
This week I’m working on my RSVPs, so I don’t know how many people will be coming to our wedding yet. Already, my fiancé‘s only two brothers and their wives have declined to come to our wedding! I don’t know who I’m going to asked to walk me down the aisle?
Covid has really messed things up for brides in 2020, but I hope that you and your new husband today will have a wonderful marriage and a wonderful honeymoon!
Blessings,Christal

I would necessarily say I’m disappointed but it does feel incomplete. We didn’t say our handwritten vows because we wanted to save them for the big wedding and then only our parents were there. Plus, because of covid we just went on with our lives at home afterward and nothing really felt “changed”. Idk I just want to feel all the love and celebrate with everyone. I think that’s when it will all feel complete.

I can say I understand how you feel. We had to cancel our May 9th 92 person wedding at our all inclusive venue. We got married with 7 people on May 16th in an outdoor garden ceremony and did have a reception at our apartment with my parents, the photographer, ourselves and my hubby's best friend Nick. I felt lonely, because my hubby parents wouldn't come but they could move from NJ to PA. It hurt. We did a honeymoon get away in the poconos at an airbnb but the Airbnb was smaller n not what the pics depicted. We decided to do a redo on our honeymoon after covid. Something that was special was we hand wrote our own vows and my husbands were so sweet, from time to time I'll go back and re-read them. Covid did ruin our dream wedding, but I liked how our wedding turned out because it was more intimate. I do wish I could have gotten my nails done etc. Only good thing about covid is it brought us closer and made our relationship stronger.

Me. We got married on our original date the first week of April in our foyer and the only way to describe it was AWKWARD. We cannot wait for the do-over!!!

Our covid wedding was a total disaster that left us feeling resentful, disappointed and angry. My parents wanted us to proceed with the wedding this year as planned, turning it into a small celebration. His parents wanted us to wait with the wedding until covid was over and we could have a proper event. My husband wanted to make me happy so we proceeded with the 8 people gathering. We were late to our officiant because my makeup took longer and ended up being absolutely horrible - I looked nothing like myself and had no time to fix it; our vowels exchange took 2 minutes as we were half an hour late; our witnesses were city hall workers cause my husband didn’t want our family to witness us getting married in such “pathetic” was; his parents made it clear they were not happy which made my husband unhappy the whole day. Overall this was a total disappointment that I honestly don’t know how I am going to recover from this. I must say I do feel a little better that I am not alone in my misery and other brides share similar feelings about their covid nuptials I completely understand your disappointment. Trust me it could have been worse - you could’ve had my wedding.