It feels like just yesterday I wrote our wedding update for June, but here we are 2 months later! The days are slow but the months have been flying by for me.

Lately, people have been asking me if wedding planning has been stressful, especially with the uncertainty of the future. But surprisingly to everyone, we’re not stressed at all. We’ve always enjoyed planning things together in the past such a trips or events, so wedding planning has been an enjoyable experience for us even during a pandemic.

So without further ado, here is everything we’ve done since the last update:

Catering: We have a caterer! This is our biggest expense for the wedding because they handle not only the food but the floor plan and coordination for the day of, so we are happy to have that nailed down. The first caterer we were hoping to reserve became unavailable due to honoring a postponed 2020 wedding, so we knew that we should book sooner rather than later since so many 2020 weddings were moved to 2021. But I am so happy with the caterer we went with (I actually looked at them several months beforehand), they are committed to sourcing as much local food as possible and also provide compost bins! All of our catering will be plastic free and we’re very fortunate to be working with a caterer whose values align with ours.

Honeymoon: I think everyone knew this was going to be my favorite part of the whole experience (I’m not @travelsoftheresa for nothing). We have known where we wanted to honeymoon practically since we got engaged. Typically people book their honeymoon 6 months before the wedding, and we are a little early at 8 months but were offered a great deal on accommodations that we couldn’t resist (plus a flexible cancellation policy!). We will be staying at an eco-resort, and I will share more details later on!

Marital Counseling: I feel like this is something many people don’t talk about when planning their wedding. Andres and I are Catholic so we are required to take a marriage counseling course (called PreCana) before our wedding. However, even if we weren’t required we feel like it is a necessary step in making that commitment to a marriage, and also to openly discuss topics/views we may have not thought to bring up before marriage (though after knowing each other for over 10 years, we’re hoping we have covered many of them already haha).

Create a Shortened Guest List: This update is one that can really only be applied to fellow Covid brides, but I think it’s an important update to bring up. Our wedding is in April of 2021, and while we are cautiously hopeful that we can invite everyone on our original guest list, if conditions remain the same we know we will have to shorten our guest list to stay within the laws of our state and protect the health of everyone involved. We are using The Knot for our wedding planning tools, and they have a feature where you can create multiple events and guest lists. We used this tool so we could physically see what a small wedding would look like, and I think it is an important discussion to have now so we can mentally prepare ourselves for this scenario.

Bachelorette: I don’t know many details about this one since it is being planned by my maid of honor and sister, but we’ve blocked off a weekend in late September. We’re staying at the most amazing house in Cambridge, Maryland! Everyone coming is quarantining themselves 2 weeks before as well as 2 weeks after, and we will be spending the whole weekend locked away at the house (which is what I have always wanted to do for my bachelorette anyway). We’ll spend the days by the pool, chatting, and playing board games!