I had to change the number of guests from 130 to 10. I had to find a new venue and caterer because the ones that we had planned on using had to temporarily close. We no longer had any groomsmen or bridesmaids on the day of because we kept it to family only.

My wedding planner and life long family friend, Andrea Radford, turned her home into the perfect venue for a small intimate wedding. She completely flipped her house for us and worked with my vendors to make it look absolutely beautiful! Her sidewalk and front porch served as the perfect aisle and stage for an outside wedding.

She surprised us by working with our families to have pictures of our parents’ and grandparents’ wedding days and pictures of us throughout our relationship on tables for the reception. I can’t thank her enough for basically taking wedding planning off my plate and creating the best day ever for us!

Another factor that influenced us going ahead with the wedding was Dylan’s mother’s health. When we made the decision to go forward with the wedding, his mom was at a place that we weren’t sure when she would be fully recovered, out of the hospital, and able to come to a wedding.

Through discussions with Dylan’s family, we knew we had their support to go ahead with the wedding. Even though Dylan’s Mom, Dad, and sister were unable to come to the wedding due to health issues and travel constraints because of coronavirus, we were able to talk with all of them on the day of the wedding which was so special. We’re so thankful now that Dylan’s Mom is on a fantastic path to a full recovery!

My venue was the Vinton War Memorial, Dana, the coordinator there was so amazing about everything. They were able to give me a refund which I am so grateful for! With my intended DJ and caterer, I was able to hold my deposits with them to act as a credit for a future event.

For my wedding cake, photographer, and florist, I was able to work with them and figure out payments along with the task of scaling down the services they were providing. My wedding vendors went above and beyond what I had envisioned and hoped for our smaller-than-anticipated wedding day!

 We followed the 10 people rule at the wedding and kept physical interactions – like hugging – to a minimum.

There were so many pros! As I mentioned, we were able to have more time with our photographer which was awesome. I feel like getting ready for the wedding was more relaxed because we weren’t taking a lot of pictures with a wedding party. Overall everything was so relaxed because there were only 10 people there, We got to spend a lot of time talking with everyone the whole night.

The major con to not being able to have the large wedding that we planned was not having all of our friends and family there with us, which was heartbreaking.

I learned that making plans is important. But being able to be patient when those plans get changed is even more important. I also realized how lucky I am to have family and friends that all pitched in to help me re-plan our wedding. I can’t thank them – and our vendors – enough for everything they did to make the wedding day so amazing!

We were supposed to be in Charleston, SC. the hotel that we were staying in and everything in downtown Charleston closed. So we had a stay-cation at our new home in Fairfax, VA. We plan on taking our honeymoon in the future.