We’ve been wedding photographers for 11 years thus far and this year has certainly been the craziest year for weddings (i.e. rescheduling them 3 times). We’re about 10 months in to the Pandemic here in the United States (us up near Chicago/ Lake Michigan) and things aren’t looking any easier, though we have hope what with the upcoming vaccinations someday hopefully this winter or spring! 7 of our 9 immediate family members have all already been fully vaccinated with BOTH Covid-19 shots since they work in healthcare or places like a fire station (all out in Arizona & California), so that brings us some relief amidst a very stressful Pandemic. We hope that since we work with hundreds of people per wedding weekend that we too can get our vaccination ASAP (and so that we can go visit our new AND only niece & nephew out West before Wedding Season starts up this year).
The Pandemic Begins…
Pandemic 2020 Weddings… where do we start?! We can start in March 2020 when on March 1st we had 2 wedding meetings- one in our Consultation Office here in South Bend where we met with the couple, the bride’s nephew, the bride’s sister-in-law, and the bride’s mom! Afterward we headed to Chicago and met with another awesome couple whose wedding we were set to photograph both privately on March 21st, then the full huge wedding in downtown Chicago on August 8th, 2020. That day we met with these 7 people and headed back home to create 2 new Wedding Contracts for their 11 hour weddings! We were additionally very excited about these two weddings because Jenny knew these two brides personally! We already talked pretty intense details for both weddings and were just waiting on payments/ returned contracts. THEN……..
COVID-19 hit the United States intensely.
Jenny got sick on March 4th and was sick FOR THREE WEEKS through literally March 25th. Even though she was desperately Googling her symptoms and wanted a Covid-19 test, tests were NOT available and she finally only found ONE chart from China confirming that her symptoms were likely Covid-19. Her symptoms that she got 4 days after our meetings with 7 Wedding Meeting folks in Indiana and Illinois/ Chicago were: 1) Intense awful headache Day One. 2) Complete loss of taste for 3 weeks. 3) Very painful deep sore throat (like Strep) on Day Two. 4) Entire full body aches leaving her bedridden and trying to work from a laptop from bed. 5) 3 full weeks of phlegm in her throat that didn’t remind her of Bronchitis, Pneumonia, or anything that she’s gotten in previous winters. 6) Fever which finally broke (leaving her covered in sweat head-to-toe one night).
Pandemic Wedding Couples & Vendors Panic
We are almost positive that Jenny got Covid-19 for 3 full weeks which started 4 days later FROM the Wedding Meetings we had with 7 folks. Luckily we didn’t meet with ANY clients or potential clients in the 2 weeks leading up to those Wedding Meetings on March 1st NOR did we meet with any when Jenny was bedridden for the following 3 weeks. Since new regulations came in due to the Pandemic, our city of South Bend, Indiana LOCKED DOWN on March 16th and Chicago locked down on March 21st, so we were unable to photograph the mini legal wedding in Chicago on March 21st for the couple whose big wedding had been set to be August 8th, 2020. We felt sick to our stomachs about it all and tried to express that to the couple, but we also felt we didn’t want to expose them to Jenny AND knew that the tiny suburb of Chicago they were to be legally wed in already had 23 CONFIRMED cases of Covid-19 by March 18th. It was all bad and heartbreaking. The couple said they understood, but one lost their job, their dog broke its leg, the groom had to work as a resident (studying to be an ER doc) in downtown Chicago during the Pandemic surge, and we never heard back from them ever again about their wedding plans for August or about their contract or pay. It was the only couple we had planned a wedding with that disappeared on us, but we don’t blame them much since circumstances during the Pandemic scramble were insane.
Couples Adjust to Smaller Weddings & Rescheduled Weddings
Throughout Spring and Summer 2020 we worked HARD with clients to help them figure out where to go from there! We rescheduled Engagement Sessions and Full Weddings to late May 2020, but even that wasn’t enough and things continued to need to be rescheduled for legal, practical, & ethical reasons. One of our 2019 Wedding Couples lost their grandma in a South Bend Nursing Home to Covid-19 ((even though families hadn’t been let in to visit them for MONTHS)) and we were all devastated. ALL of June was devastated with big weddings being rescheduled (and continued to be rescheduled during Waves 1, 2, & 3 of the Pandemic from Spring to Summer to Winter to Finally Late Summer 2021). Legal Weddings for some couples who still wanted to get legally married with 20 to 30 guests on their original date (or a date close to it) were still happening quietly, but they and everyone else wanted to push their BIG formal wedding at the BIG venues back to late Summer of 2021.
There seemed to be no great or right answers for wedding reschedulings, so we all just did our best. Most of our couples have rescheduled 3 times (though a couple ones rescheduled only once- a FULL year out from Aug & Sept 2020 to Aug & Sept 2021). We had to remake ALL of our wooden engraved Keepsake Box lids and Wedding Albums for any of these couples weren’t made (pushing all of these back to late Summer 2021 & Fall 2021 as well as early winter 2021). It’s all been hectic and terrifying, but we LOVE AND APPRECIATE our couples for ALL sticking with us as we’ve stuck with them throughout all of this. Anywho, ONTO Midwest Weddings-!
Thanks so much for checking out our 3rd year straight of our <Best of Weddings> blog post! This one is obviously due to a literal Pandemic and with may months here in Indiana, Michigan, and Chicago being illegal to throw events, but it’s still something!
If this year has taught us anything it is that our client family is our biggest group of allies and that we can all get through this together with teamwork and genuine care. We genuinely want ALL of our couples AND their loved ones to remain healthy and alive, so we’re hoping that by this summer with mass vaccinations that 2021 full weddings can happen in late summer 2021 and through those final 6 months of the year and can be safe at that-! To hope!