Our Backyard Wedding Was So Much Better Than Our Original Plans
The pandemic forced us to cancel our big wedding, but that turned out to be a blessing
Charlie and I were set to get married in June, with a botanical-themed ceremony and reception with 120 of our closest family and friends in Moraga, California. Then the coronavirus happened.
Under very different circumstances, like many couples, we had to improvise and make tough decisions. But in the end, our intimate ceremony in my parents’ backyard was way better than what we had originally planned.
I’d say that as a couple planning a wedding we leaned more pragmatic than romantic, which came in handy. When we got engaged last summer, we swiftly planned our 2020 celebration, excited less about the appetizers at the reception and more a lifetime side-by-side watching sports and cooking dinner together.
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In early March, when the coronavirus was moving around the city with little detection, there was an air of unease about the virus, but we continued on with our lives — albeit with a major increase in hand-washing and anxiety on public transportation. We even went to the New York Knicks versus Utah Jazz game at Madison Square Garden, something that feels so strange now.
One week later, New York City went into a tailspin, the NBA was canceled, and we were soon on lockdown. I’d call my parents in the East Bay to check in, and they’d assure me that the California had it figured out. The state was ahead of the curve when it came to shutting down and stopping the spread early; New York was a different story.
Within days of Covid-19’s spread in New York and elsewhere, I had a strong feeling our June wedding wasn’t going to happen. But both my mother and my future mother-in-law assured me that our Hacienda de las Flores “Yountville-meets-Laurel-Canyon” spectacle would go on. Sadness washed over me as I mentally cordoned off the disappointment. It seemed unimportant in light of what was happening.
Days later, Charlie’s parents Irene and Howard came down with Covid-19. We received a call from Charlie’s mom that his dad was increasingly sick. She was also experiencing symptoms, but Howard was exhausted, feverish, coughing, and as sick as Irene had ever seen him.
We were constantly on the phone with both sets of parents, attempting to assuage fears. The store Howard manages is in one of the hardest-hit boroughs. It was no surprise that he was exposed, especially back when masks were not advised and testing was practically nonexistent. He teetered between needing a trip to the hospital and resting at home during that scary time when the influx of Covid-19 patients in March was pushing ICUs to the brink of their capabilities.
Thankfully Howard healed at home after several weeks, Meanwhile, my mother and mother-in-law still had their eyes on the wedding, and Charlie and I were pretty much in limbo and feeling uneasy about charting a path forward. It was early-to-mid-April and we were resigned to the fact that our original plans were not possible.
“What do you want to do? Do you want to wait until next year? Or should we make other plans?” I calmly asked Charlie as we sat on our well-worn gray couch in our Manhattan apartment/work-from-home office.
“Honestly, I just want to get married. I love you and I just want to marry you!” Charlie said with such joyful conviction.
I smiled. I felt exactly the same. Especially in light of his parents’ health, we were bonded by the events around us.
The decision was made and now came the questions: If we want to get married, how can we do it safely, and where?
We decided an East Bay wedding was the best option, albeit an extremely small one with immediate family only. Howard and Irene decided they felt safe to fly, and Charlie’s sister and husband were willing to take the risk to come out as well. We felt it best to travel early to the East Bay in May to quarantine at my parents’ in the back part of my childhood home in Lafayette.
In that moment, all of the tribulations and the anxieties we all endured coping with this disease faded away.
The ceremony would occur on the astroturf putting green in our drought-tolerant backyard under a Home-Depot-acquired trellis, and dinner would be on the patio. My parents, realtors, hired a 19-year-old Diablo Valley College student to shoot all of their open houses — so they hired him as our wedding photographer, too.
After doing some research into marriage licenses and virtual weddings in Contra Costa County, we set a FaceTime appointment with the clerk-recorder and got our license sent via mail. Charlie’s brother-in-law would officiate with a Universal Life Church ordainment, as originally planned, except instead of in front of 120 guests, it would just be us in person, and anyone interested could watch on Instagram Live.
A few days before, my mother and I went to the San Francisco flower market on Wednesday and procured smoke-colored vases and a cornucopia of wildflowers. On Friday, the day of the wedding, my sister braided my hair and styled it, while I did my own makeup in our parents’ bathroom. It was as if we were back at Stanley Middle School at a sleepover watching The Real World on MTV, but instead of celebrating a birthday party, it was a wedding.
The entire process felt so free and collaborative. It was without grandiose production, and with a lot of heart. When Charlie and I said our vows and exchanged rings, it felt pure and delicate — like a private moment shared between two people, without fanfare. The ceremony was true to us, and the depth of our love. In that moment, all of the tribulations and the anxieties we all endured coping with this disease faded away. The passion felt for our family, and the gratitude we all had to be alive and at such an ebullient occasion, was as vibrant as the cornflower and tea roses adorning the vessels my mother expertly arranged.
We made toasts at the spacious dining table that allowed the groups from New York and California to maintain distance from each other. (Charlie’s family and mine maintained social distancing between us as a precaution, and we all had our masks handy in case we needed to venture indoors.)
Even with the wedding, those who couldn’t be there understood and supported via views of the broadcast.
It’s been six weeks since the wedding, and I can’t stop beaming when I think of the day or when I think of our family sitting around that table. The wedding wasn’t settling; it was just right.
