Love is NEVER canceled!!! Our hearts go out to all the couples out there who have been forced into a situation where they have had to cancel, postpone or adjust plans for their wedding due to COVID-19. But… Love can’t be canceled and over the last year and a half couples all around the world have been finding ways to celebrate despite the pandemic and ever-changing rules and regulations.

This article highlights the experience from one of our own coordinators, Julie, and the experience she had adjusting her own wedding plans due to the pandemic. We hope it can provide a little slice of hope and maybe give you some insight into what you can do to celebrate now that the “Big” day plans have changed, been postponed, or even canceled. If you take anything away from her story it is that celebrating your love is a priority. The show must go on in some way or another. Consider that you should celebrate small before you celebrate big, in one way or another!

First things first, if you have decided to postpone your wedding you need to do something to celebrate your original date. We are urging all couples who have been put in the position of having to change their big day to do something special for themselves on this date. There is a reason you chose the date in the first place and a world pandemic shouldn’t take that away from you. This could be anything from an extra special date night, a zoom call with all your loved ones, or popping a bottle of champagne you were saving for the big day. Or what about going through with your wedding on a smaller scale!

Go for it!! Having such a monumental day in your life just ripped away from you for reasons so out of your control is pretty traumatic. There is absolutely no reason you can’t get married right now, you just have to get creative.

There are some incredibly crafty ideas that determined couples have pulled off to tie the knot despite restrictions. This could mean eloping, with only the couple and officiant, or downsizing your original wedding plans to only those really close friends and family. This means getting creative for your guests who couldn’t make it. For example, Live stream your vows or have a combination of onsight and live stream guests. Organize outdoor tours and activities or attend a luau with all your guests who have already made arrangements to come to Hawaii. Or maybe Have multiple small celebrations with different groups on different days. Let’s Chat about how you can get creative and crafty with your celebrations options!

Kauai Lead Wedding Coordinator and Team Manager, Julie had to postpone her April 2020 wedding. She shares her experience on why they decided to go ahead and have a small ceremony, what they did to celebrate and how they pulled it off. She even offers personal tips for couples thinking of doing the same thing. We hope you enjoy this interview-style blog of Julie’s small celebration story…

This August (2021) my husband and I will be making 10 years together! We got engaged in 2019 and of course, as a wedding coordinator, I was secretly already making plans. Getting married was an exciting step for us and we were both looking forward to being “husband and wife”. To me, it is a positive label and it shows that you are committed to your partner and I was ready for the world to see us as a strong unit.

In the weeks leading up to our original wedding date, April 25th, 2020, we went in circles on having a small ceremony or just waiting for our new postponement date in March 2021. April 25th came and our immediate family gathered at my sister’s house to have dinner and celebrate what would have been the largest party our family has had in a while. It was special to have everyone together on our date and Mike and I even shared a “first dance” moment.

After that weekend, we knew what we wanted. We wanted to be married and said, “let’s just do it!!” Once we committed, I started doing the natural thing.. Planning! At this time in the pandemic (April 2020), we were unable to use our original venue and most of our vendors due to restrictions and curfews so we had to make adjustments.

My older sister’s house is like our family “hub.” It was only natural to have our intimate ceremony in her backyard! It was small and perfect. Just our immediate family attended in person. We also had a handful of people on a zoom call.

It was really hard for us not to have EVERYONE there so we wanted them to still feel included. I utilized my wedding website and also sent out “we eloped” cards! The cards had QR codes on them which brought people directly to our site where they could check out our story of our elopement as well as our wedding photos and video for them to check out.

Yes! We made it legal and I took his last name! It made it feel official.

We had to take the steps of completing the online marriage license and meeting with a marriage license agent to obtain the hard copy. The Wine Shop in Koloa was the closest agent to us and they made the process very easy, simple, and quite enjoyable. Our agent brought some excitement to the idea of still getting married in this crazy time of history!

We only had a few Kauai Vendors present. The rest was DIY and Family contributions. I did my own hair and makeup, handled all the decor and made my own bouquet! We had a professional photographer, and videographer, Foto Pop . Our dear friend and favorite Kauai Officiant, Aokai performed our ceremony. We are really close with him and his wife  It was really special for him to perform our ceremony and union.

Half my laundry room is wedding decor storage that includes mine and some that I keep on hand for ABC wedding days, so I went through it and pulled some out!

One of my family members got me a Cricut last Christmas. If you are a DIY-er you need one! My sister and I used it to make a custom sign. Then I bought 4 bouquets of flowers from Safeway and my best friend so wonderfully gathered greenery from Kokee.

The week of my original wedding day, I decided that now that I have more time to plan, I’m determined to make my own wedding bouquet and took to YouTube from some tutorials. The skills came in handy and I made my own bouquet. Loved every minute of it! I also made 3 centerpiece arrangements with a wooden vase holder, glass jars that I’ve been hoarding, and twinkle lights.

You bet I wore my wedding dress!! I really wanted to make the ceremony special and for Mike to see me as a Bride. Mike wore a handsome collared shirt he already had since we canceled his suit rental, nice jeans, and boots (my favorite look on him!) We both decided at the big reception we’ll get fancy where he’ll wear his suit and I’ll wear my veil. It was such a special moment for him to see me as a bride.

I wouldn’t say that we had a mini reception due to Kauai’s curfew being in place at the time of celebration (Spring 2020). After the ceremony, we took group and family photos, and then Mike and I took sunset photos. Then we all had dinner. The only wedding tradition we did was cutting the cake later in the evening.

To be completely honest, the idea of a “big reception” is still in the air. I’m a planner at work and a true planner at heart. It was hard for me to let go of all the planning I had already done and not have a full wedding day. I spent a lot of time, energy, and money planning our special day, and the closer we got to the date the more excited I was to see it all come together. Mike and I originally postponed our wedding date to March 2021. Ultimately we decided to forgo our “big” wedding this year due to ongoing and ever-changing restrictions. Down the line, we can always have an awesome house-warming party or a vow renewal as our big celebration!

Do It! You owe it to yourselves to celebrate your love even if it isn’t the big party you always dreamed of. That party can still happen in the future! Think of what your priorities are for your wedding now, not when you started planning but now. If it is to say I DO, the answer is obvious. Do it now! If your priority is to have a big party, then postpone to a later date but keep in mind the unpredictability of this pandemic. I am so happy Mike and I decided to have our small celebration and now can call each other husband and wife. I will cherish that day forever.

As a coordinator, who is in love with weddings, you can imagine that postponing and even forgoing (FOR NOW) having a big wedding was not easy for Julie. In our interview, she mentioned the rollercoaster of emotions she went through. We know you are all going through this as well. We believe that having this small celebration really helped her overcome this sudden roadblock in their wedding plans.

In the end, our biggest takeaway from chatting with her was how happy she is they went through with the small ceremony. We hope Julie’s story can be an inspiration of what it could be like to celebrate small before you celebrate big.

Thank you to everyone who made Julie’s Small Ceremony Possible:

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