Miranda & Will’s Wedding During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Miranda & Will’s Wedding During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Have you ever thought about how strange our current reality would look if we could have caught a brief glimpse of it last year? We would have thought, “Why is everyone wearing masks, what is going on?”

Here we are living through a pandemic, a new experience for everyone on the planet. All aspects of our lives have been altered and our mindsets have had to play catch up with the ever-changing statistics and statewide mandates. We’re all having to make difficult decisions and make sacrifices one way or another.

Weddings are being postponed, some more than once. It’s hard enough to plan a wedding but to have to reschedule a wedding – oof! That would be tough. Some clients are choosing to have a smaller wedding than they originally planned, as was the case with Miranda & Will.

They had planned to get married at the State Club at NC State. But, when the venue canceled their wedding, they decided to host the wedding at the home of the bride’s parents in Cary, NC. As Jenny, the mother of the bride, said, they went from having to show up and get dressed to having to coordinate all aspects of the wedding and make sure that their yard was immaculate! The bride’s parents did a tremendous job of planning and worked tirelessly to make sure that they attended to all of the details of the wedding.

Miranda was just beginning a career as a nurse and was adamant that safety be a top priority. She felt the weight of everyone’s safety on her shoulders. She saw her ceremony, which was live-streamed to friends and family online, as an opportunity to be an example of compliance and to highlight its importance. Everyone except her, Will, and the officiant wore masks during the ceremony.

Before the wedding, the bridesmaids waited downstairs (wearing masks) while Jenny helped Miranda get dressed. Normally everyone would be gathered around the bride to help her, but since it wouldn’t be safe to have everyone so close to each other, we just had mom helping Miranda.

The reception was also meticulously thought out. The tables were spaced out strategically on the patio so that only people of the same household were within 6 feet of one another. There was a seated dinner so that people could remain socially distant. All of the vendors wore masks. I wore a mask all day, only taking it off for a quick breather when I was at a safe distance from others. We did our best to do socially distant poses with the bridal party when necessary. We even threw the masks in for a few shots. And, during the sparkler exit, guests wore masks. We also did a posed sparkler shot with 2 different couples standing close together, but the couples themselves were spaced out. Normally weddings require a tremendous amount of planning, but a pandemic wedding – well that’s just on a whole other level!

I realized later that the experience of photographing this wedding was a crash course in how to photograph/plan a “pandemic wedding” in the safest way possible. Not only am I grateful for this family’s leadership in insisting on compliance and safety, but I am fortunate to have this experience to share with clients who are planning a small wedding during the pandemic.

Ok, enough serious stuff. Here are a few fun facts about Miranda & Will’s wedding: they met when Will started tutoring Miranda in math. Will is actually a friend of Miranda’s brother. The booklets that they used for their wedding vows were the same that Miranda’s parents used at their wedding. After their couple’s session, they greeted some local friends and family who drove up to the driveway, forming a little post-wedding parade. Some guests even decked out their cars with signs and balloons. Miranda had a special lace mask and her bridesmaids had matching sparkly masks. Gotta have a little fun with the mask thing, right?! ❤️ Congrats, Miranda & Will!