With families and friends unable to come together to celebrate new babies, big birthdays, and yes, weddings, too, people all around the world have had to make the hard decision to cancel or postpone their milestone events as the coronavirus pandemic has taken over.
But one Texas couple decided that just because they couldn’t gather their loved ones in person, that didn’t mean they weren’t going to still say “I do,” surrounded by the warmth of those who love them most. So, they took to the platform we’ve all been heading to to connect these days and hosted a Zoom wedding instead.
Originally, when stay-at-home orders were first enforced, Kaitlin Dilworth and Ethan Pollack of Austin, Texas, decided to postpone their Mar. 28 wedding. In fact, they rescheduled the entire event for next year, putting down deposits for the venue, band, and catering.
But as their original wedding date grew closer and closer, Kaitlin and Ethan, who’d been together for eight years, got to talking. After all, they already had the marriage license, rings, outfits, and an officiant. Why shouldn’t they get married?
“We had waited this long already and realized that it was never about the wedding, it was about the marriage,” Kaitlin said. “So we just did it.”
The couple sent out email instructions to guests letting them know the ceremony was back on and dropped their marriage license off with their officiant to sign (maintaining proper social distancing protocol, of course).
On Mar. 28, they had almost 200 people tune in via Zoom to watch them say their vows, and everyone found their own way to get involved, too. Some friends wore tuxes, others sent in video toasts, and several mailed them bottles of champagne.
“My bridesmaids made a video toast all wearing their dresses. Our friends and family made a video of them all dancing to ‘Dancing Queen,’ copying the dance scene from Mamma Mia!” Kaitlin said. “I cried my eyes out. I didn’t ask any of them to do this.”
Still, there were a few hilarious hiccups along the way. “At one point, Ethan’s grandmother, Carol, just started talking, right when we were saying our ‘I do’s.’ Then we heard his cousin Beth speak up, ‘Grandma! Grandma Carol! We can hear you! You have to be quiet Grandma!’ It was too funny,” Kaitlin recalled.
And as neighbors watched from over the fence, their dog Pru interrupted a bit with some barking, too.
It was a “different” ceremony than the one they envisioned, to say the least. With little time to prepare, the wedding decorations consisted of a tree in their backyard, with “every plant” they own arranged around it.
Kailtin’s bouquet was a set of grocery store flowers her mother delivered the day before.
And the entire occasion was captured by their photographer, who maintained a safe six-foot distance.
Of course, with travel essentially halted, Kaitlin and Ethan also had to come up with an alternative honeymoon plan. “We honeymooned in our living room eating pizza and watching Planet Earth,” Kaitlin said.
They still plan to have their rescheduled in-person reception next year, but Kaitlin wouldn’t change a thing about their Zoom wedding. “It was not what I had planned or ever imagined but it was, in a way, perfect,” she said. And for more feel-good stories amid coronavirus.
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Lovely… Zoom is really trying. Thank God for the platform