Our Story Part Eight: A Very Covid Engagement

      Our engagement STARTED normal. I went dress shopping, picked out my wedding party, and starting looking into photographers and caterers. Since Raymond lived in Alberta, and the wedding would be in Ontario, the bulk of the wedding planning fell on me. I would have to be the one who would meet with people. Raymond thankfully did all he could from Alberta, dealing with our tent rental, through whom we were also renting all the tables and dishes and everything else. Because I knew that come March, I'd be working 6 days a week, I wanted to get all the major things out of the way before then. We set our wedding date for August 29, and off we went.

     By the end of February, I'd booked a caterer, a florist, and photographer. We had the church booked, as well as all the rentals for the reception, which would be held in a tent in my aunt and uncle's backyard. Things seemed to be going well.

     And then March of 2020 hit.

     We all know what THAT entailed.

     I wasn't worried about our wedding when Covid first hit. After all, it was March. The wedding was still half a year away! It would be fine!

     Let me tell you, though, planning a wedding during Covid is a very interesting thing. Constant changes, constant guessing. Never knowing if restrictions would change. It was hard to plan! I was just thankful that I had done most of the major things before Covid hit. We were more in a place of waiting to see, rather than trying to book and plan WHILE waiting, as my cousin Jacob and his fiancee Ericka were.

     In the end, we hit the sweet spot of the pandemic, if you can call any part of it sweet. We got married at the end of the summer, in between the first and second waves. Of the entire pandemic, this was when the restrictions were the more open. Two weeks after our wedding day, Ontario shut back down, and it hasn't really opened up to that extent since. 

     We got married on August 29, 2020. Because of the pandemic, we moved our wedding from the church to being outside, in my aunt and uncle's backyard. We were allowed to have 100 people, which actually was just right for me (we had to cut some people, but everyone who truly mattered to us could come!). We limited our reception to just 70, mostly family members. It was a beautiful day -very windy, but that doesn't matter- and ultimately, all that mattered was that we got married!

     Covid caused us to be flexible and reassess what was important. It wasn't fun, but it didn't matter.

     And on August 29, 2020, I became Raymond's wife.

     Blessings,

          Katie