Why I’m grateful coronavirus cancelled my wedding

When a global pandemic forces you to cancel your dream wedding, what do you do next?

Something happened this year I never thought would.

Well, a few things actually; there’s the global pandemic nobody saw coming. No hugs, travel, closure of pubs and now, if you love to twerk at the club, you have to do it while sitting on a chair.

But as crazy as all that is, that’s not it.

I never thought I’d be grateful coronavirus cancelled my wedding.

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Of course, not being able to marry the man I love on the day we’d planned, at the wedding we’d planned with the people from all over the world who had planned to be there was, and is, devastating.

But if this year has taught me anything, it’s to be grateful for what, and who, we have in our lives.

Father congratulating his daughter on her wedding day. Picture: Supplied.

When people’s worlds and realities are spinning into chaos, entire communities suffering and livelihoods crippled, it hardly seems important to be worrying about what flowers will be in season in June or where we should seat Uncle Pete.

It took a pandemic cancelling our big day to remind me what a wedding really is.

What it should be. What it always was.

It’s not standing in a dressing room in your underwear being asked by a baby-faced retail assistant to step into a mountain of tulle who is beaming at you like it’s your dream to become a sparkling meringue.

It’s not scrolling through Instagram staring at whimsical weddings in the hills where guests arrive by horse and cart and stay in glamping accommodation by the lake.

It’s not being conned into paying 10 times more than you should for an updo just because you mentioned the word “wedding”. It’s not being charged extra to have the table cloths ironed.

It’s not the parade or production it’s become.

Thousands of weddings have been cancelled in the wake of the global pandemic. Picture: Supplied

It’s none of it. It’s much simpler. A wedding is about two people who love each other and want to make a lifelong commitment, who want to stand side by side through life together. Always.

I’ve heard of couples during peak coronavirus restrictions tying the knot in their backyard, marrying in a park as friends watched from their cars in the carpark or being separated in different countries but having a wedding anyway via Zoom. Then there are the stories of the past, like my grandparents.

In the middle of WWII with two weeks’ notice, my grandparents got married while grandpa was on leave from the war. Grandma borrowed a dress and veil from a friend and they wed in a small ceremony in October, 1944. Then, incredibly, Grandma watched her husband march back to war with a heavy heart, not knowing if she would ever see him again. They did it for love and not the fanfare.

As restrictions begin to lift, weddings can return and as much as it’s a relief for us, it also gives our loved ones something to celebrate after months of darkness.

While we still have no idea what our wedding day will look like (fingers crossed it includes a dancefloor!) we’ve learned it doesn’t really matter anymore.

There’s one thing that has never and will never change, we will always have each other.