For many, the past year has been marked by sadness and loss, but some are still celebrating milestones from births and graduations to wedding days.
Amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, weddings have changed in Saskatchewan.
In April, on their 10-year anniversary of dating, Erin Petrow and her husband decided to tie the knot.
“Because we’d been together for so long the wedding wasn’t a huge thing for us anyway, it was more just a legality that we wanted to get out of the way,” she said.
The couple opted for a small, intimate ceremony: 20 minutes at Boffins Public Gardens on a Tuesday with 10 guests in total.
“That was about the perfect amount for me,” Petrow said.
“We were looking at eloping but this kind of gave us the option to do something small without hurting people’s feelings and then also having our parents there to be with us.”’
Many delaying weddings
Some couples, like Petrow and her husband, are getting hitched amid restrictions, including limited gathering sizes.
However, that’s not the majority, according to RSVP Event Design in Saskatoon. It said most sweethearts are opting to push their big day back.
The company once averaged 25 weddings a year. In 2020 it saw only six.
“They still want to get together with their family, that’s really important to them … and having that large celebration, so for those clients it just makes sense to postpone it for a year,” said owner Crystal Anderson McLeod.
DJ company Armed with Harmony told Global News livestreaming ceremonies has become a big part of its business. It said it’s had to adapt and get creative.
“Drive-by parties or parades or different things of that nature, we’ve done that so we could still be socially distant but music travels in the air and then there’s no contact points,” explained owner Trystan Meyers.
Anderson McLeod said as more people get vaccinated, she won’t be surprised to see celebrations get more extravagant.
“Some of my colleagues in the U.S. that are able to have events, they say people are going all out and going over the top because they’re just so happy to be able to gather again,” she said.
She added more couples are now looking at late summer weddings in the coming months as the province’s COVID-19 situation improves.
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