Wedding Bells Amidst the Pandemic

By Moriah Story

For many women, wedding plans begin during childhood. Dreams about the perfect white dress, bouquets of flowers, tearful vows and perfectly frosted cakes fill the minds of young girls for years leading up to their weddings, and often, those dreams come true.

But what happens when the fantasy wedding you’ve been planning for a lifetime is supposed to take place during a world-wide pandemic?

Jane Herman and Josh Thompson, of Greencastle, Pennsylvania, have had to answer that question for themselves.

The couple got engaged on August 16, 2019, and have been awaiting their marriage with excitement. All details were in place when the coronavirus struck the United States. They watched with sadness as their initial plan of a wedding at Cornerstone Bible Church with 150 guests and a large reception afterward fell to pieces. Their dreams of feasting and dancing with their family and friends, followed by a honeymoon to Jamaica are no longer possible, leaving them to wonder: what next?

For them, the answer is clear.

The pair will still be saying, “I do,” on May 16, as they originally planned, but the ceremony will look a little different than their dream wedding.

“We are no longer having our wedding in the church, or having our reception directly after our ceremony. We now will have our wedding outside in a little field where our family can still be with us, and friends and family who are able will be coming to watch from their cars. Thankfully all of our vendors and family have been so thoughtful, and each of them are helping to make our outside, ‘drive-in-movie’ wedding as beautiful as we could have imagined” says Herman.

And the vendors and caterers that they hired have kindly offered for them to reschedule their celebrations for sometime later this year, when all of their guests can come rejoice with them once the virus is no longer a threat.

For Jane and Josh, postponing the wedding so they could keep their initial wedding plans was not a choice they wanted to make. Despite the hardships, they could not be more excited to begin their life together now.

“To us marriage is so much more than the wedding. Yes, we have dreamed about what our wedding would be like for a long time, but in the end that’s not what it’s about. We would say as unconventional as our wedding is now, we are still just as excited as we were before the pandemic,” says Herman.

And to the other couples, who are asking themselves the question, “To postpone or not to postpone?” Thompson and Herman offer some advice: “It’s okay to be sad or angry at first when you realize things aren’t what you thought they would be. But just make sure you look deeper, and remember what your marriage is all about and what it stands for. And in our opinion if your marriage is going to have as much to offer as we know ours will, then we promise you, you will look beyond all the fun wedding day things, and you still will figure out a way to be with the person you love with all your heart.”

Congratulations to the two of them, and any other couples saying their vows during this time of uncertainty and limited normalcy.