Our Dream Wedding Was Cancelled Because of the Coronavirus Outbreak
Gretchen Lehman and Ryan McGee always knew they wanted a destination wedding; it was only a matter of where. The location needed to be beautiful with a vibrant culture and lots of art, and relatively convenient for friends and family to get to. Bonus points if there was a church, since they're both Catholic.
Shortly after getting engaged in August 2018, Lehman and McGee settled on Rome: Not only is "La Città Eterna," or the eternal city, the epicenter of Catholicism, its rich history spans 28 centuries and the city is, in itself, a work of art.
One year and dozens of archived Instagram-inspo pics later, Lehman and McGee put down a deposit on a 16th century historic cottage 20 minutes from the city. Together, they sourced local vendors, sent out invitations, reserved hotel rooms, and booked flights. The date was set for April 4.
But just one month before the big day, Italy imposed a nationwide lockdown. The country, now in its second week of emergency measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, imposed strict bans on travel and public gatherings. That meant, of course, no weddings.
"I was really excited to spend several days with the people we love most in the world in this beautiful place and share the incredible experience that was going to be our wedding," Lehman, 37, tells ELLE.com. "It's been sad, but it's important to keep things in perspective."
As countries continue to enforce big gathering bans, soon-to-be-married couples all over the world are finding themselves in similar situations. In the big scheme of things, McGee, 36, tells ELLE.com, cancelling a wedding is a small problem during a global pandemic. But it still sucks.
He was in Denver for his bachelor party when a phone alert popped up with warnings of a potential travel ban in Europe. Lehman was home in Tampa, where her maid-of-honor was hosting a bridal shower, when she first saw the news. It was the last weekend in February, and Italian officials had just begun to enforce lockdowns throughout the country. Lehman called her fiancé to talk through their options.
"Early on, we thought perhaps it wouldn't affect us, but after a few days, we quickly realized how serious the situation was," she says. "Then, they closed the borders, and we knew this was really serious."
Since then, Italy has imposed a quarantine limiting any nonessential movement across the country. There are 31,506 confirmed cases of the disease there and over 2,500 deaths, according to Al Jazeera.
"The decision was really made for us," McGee says. "We don't want to sound like ungrateful people who think [a cancelled wedding] is the biggest problem in the world and anyone who doesn't understand our plight is insensitive. We get that we are on a spectrum of issues here, certainly on the less problematic."
Still, the couple, both lawyers from Florida, were heartbroken to cancel their dream wedding. They asked vendors for refunds, texted their 30 wedding guests, and scrambled to get everyone's flights credited. Their friends and family offered to plan a makeshift wedding stateside, but that idea was scrapped after President Donald Trump suggested Americans could be practicing social distancing until July or August.
They've gotten most of their money back, but for now everything wedding-related is on hold. The future, McGee and Lehman say, is too uncertain to re-plan anything just yet.
"This experience has really opened my eyes to see the important reasons behind the event you are planning, which is more important than the event itself," Lehman says. "Even if it doesn't look like what you imagined, remember that the love behind it all is still there and that's the most important thing."
You Might Also Like
