It’s not easy planning a wedding amidst a pandemic, given the surprise lockdowns and endless restrictions (which I appreciate because they’re set in place to protect us). Personally, we moved the wedding up by 3 months because in terms of COVID the world seemed to be doing a little better and we really didn’t want to risk postponing it any further and then be forced to postpone it as a result of rising cases. And thus I planned the micro wedding.
Mind you, by micro I mean 30 people, I don’t know if that’s a super micro wedding but being Arab that was the minimum number of people I had to invite, I tried to cut back as much as I could but it was impossible to go any lower than 30.
PROS AND CONS OF A MICRO WEDDING
I loved the intimacy of my wedding; all my friends were my closest and bestest friends and I loved the fact that I could share this very special moment without being surrounded by the not so close friends. The whole wedding just felt so much more special, private and personal and I honestly couldn’t have been happier being surrounded by the people who I knew had genuine love for me.
Cutting back on the number of invitees does come with its own cons, and that is that there were some people who meant a lot to come but I just couldn’t fit them into the list, then there were the people who took it to heart that I didn’t invite them. It’s really challenging taking every single persons feelings into consideration when you have an entire wedding + life to plan so there were days were it was definitely overwhelming... but I knew it’ll all be worth it.
START EARLY
I don’t know if I speak on behalf of every woman ever, but I had my wedding planned from the age of 6 maybe. I needn’t bother look for a venue because I always knew exactly where I wanted my wedding to be, so I went a few months prior and took a look and tried to find the most perfect location for the set-up, photoshoot etc. Because of COVID there was so much uncertainty and at first, I didn’t want to hire a wedding planner because I was too afraid that there would be a lockdown and then my dream wedding would turn into a home wedding. That brings us to my next point.
HAVE A VISION BOARD
I started planning completely on my own initially, then when I knew exactly what I wanted I did so much research (on Instagram) trying to find a wedding planner who I knew would understand and see my vision without me having to go the extra mile. That research brought me to the best wedding planner and from our very first meeting I knew she was the one!
By the time we had our first meeting, I had created my own vision board and I knew exactly what I wanted after having spent months on Pinterest and running out of storage on my phone.
ASK FOR HELP
I like to think of myself as a strong independent woman but desperate times call for desperate measures. The closer we got to the wedding the busier I got and the more overwhelmed I got and I learned that asking for help is okay, even if you have a wedding planner it can still feel like a lot so don’t be afraid to ask friends and family for assistance where need be.
NOT EVERYTHING WILL GO ACCORDING TO PLAN
I had to learn this the hard way because my photographer cancelled 10 days before the wedding. So of course like any bride I had a breakdown and cried it out for around 3 hours, until I was able to think rationally and remember that we lived in a social media world which meant that I was able to find a photographer on Instagram if I really set my mind to it, which I did! I found the sweetest and most wonderful photographer.
Enjoy my wedding gallery.
@yuliyaphotographyoman
- REEM.
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