My Covid wedding: Jack & Lauren Jackson
The Engagement
We got engaged in Disneyland Paris in front of the castle during the fireworks display September 2016
The Original Wedding Plan
We were originally booked in to get married May 30th 2020 at The Chantry in Punnetts town near Heathfield. It’s a quaint little chapel building that’s a registered wedding venue, but doesn’t have to be used as a religious venue which fits us perfectly.
We were then going to be going to the village hall in Punnetts town after our ceremony. Another beautiful building that had a real country rustic feel, gorgeous big exposed oak beams running across the ceiling.
We’d booked a rustic ploughmans lunch, followed by afternoon tea. Pizza in the evening and a vintage ice cream truck!
We’d paid deposits on various decorations, DJ, caricaturist, donut wall etc but had made the majority of our decorations ourselves with the help of my family.
The colour themes were dusty blues, pinks and lilacs similar to hydrangeas (my favourite flower!) with a few subtle Disney touches as a nod to our engagement!
The Next Plan
We decided to postpone as we know we were never going to be able to go ahead with our original wedding with 75 guests, and reception of over 150 (we both have large families and lots of friends!) we never imagined how big this pandemic was going to be or how long it would go on for. We then moved it to May 15th 2021 and resent invites to everyone once again. In August we then found out we were expecting our first baby! Which we were absolutely thrilled to bits about, due date was originally put at May 4th which put it incredibly close to the new wedding date again. We held out for a while as I couldn’t come to terms with having to go through the stress of postponing again! But with Covid showing no sign of clearing up any time soon, we decided to just go ahead and get married before baby arrives. With the plan, to then have a big party and a ceremony when we’re able to eventually.
The Covid Wedding
In the end we just decided to get married at Eastbourne registry office on December 19th 2020 at 12:30. I had had my wedding dress for nearly 2 years this point, so there was absolutely no way that I wasn’t going to wear it! At this point I was 22 weeks pregnant so also wanted to wear it whilst I could still fit into it! We were also under Tier 3 restrictions which meant the following;
Bride, groom + 13 guests (15 people) this worked out perfectly as it meant both sets of parents, all grandparents, my sister and an auntie and uncle were able to attend.
Photographers were allowed in and weren’t included in the 15 total as they are classed as staff/workers
All socially distanced, guests had to stand on circles on the floor
No flowers, no walking down the aisle, no music, no additional words (just the very basic legal requirements for the registrar to marry us) no exchanging of rings (although we did this bit anyways!) and we had to enter together so never had that moment of the groom seeing the bride walking down the aisle for the first time.
To make things worse, my mum (mother of the bride) who had been my backbone through this entire experience, tested positive for Covid at 6:30pm the evening before the wedding. Meaning my parents nor my sister were then able to attend, it was absolutely heartbreaking for us all. But we knew that we had to continue and go ahead and that they would be there with us in spirit (they we’re actually on facetime with us during the whole ceremony and feature in some of our wedding photos where I’m holding them up on the phone).
At the end of the day, the most important part was that we would be legally married, something we’d waited a long time for. We saw this day as ‘just the paperwork’ and will recreate our ceremony when we can all be together and when our little man has safely arrived to join us
After planning the initial wedding for nearly 3 years, we then planned our small ceremony in just a couple of months!
The Vendor Scoop
The dress was from – Wed2Be in Brighton Marina – Fantastic selection and service!
Flowers – I had an artificial bouquet that my very talented mum had put together for me. Made up of dusky pink and cream peonies, with hydrangeas and lavender spring plus lots of greenery.
Photographer – Fizzy Robot Photography – they were absolutely incredible, highly recommend them to anyone!
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