Like many across the world, special occasions have been put on hold in the face of COVID-19 and with good reason. From gathering restrictions put in place by local officials, to taking the health and well-being of your loved ones into consideration, it just makes sense to wait for better days, aka summer 2021. So while this wasn’t the white dress I planned to wear this weekend, I still wore a white dress and we still celebrated. Toasting to a ‘Happy Postponement’... because there is always a reason to celebrate.
So how do you go about celebrating a postponed wedding, an undone Wine Country wedding during COVID-19? Carefully!
This may be harder to accomplish if you’re having a destination wedding that requires flying… that’s still a no go in our book. But if you’re getting married locally, let’s say even within a 50 mile radius of your venue then consider visiting and celebrating what would have been a really fun weekend, creating memories to cherish and funny stories to tell your next generation.
Here’s how we celebrated and some things to consider if you choose to do the same.
Accommodations - Stay on property. Our wedding venue features a guest cottage, where by day it’s used as the bridal suite and by night the honeymoon suite ; ). We were fortunate enough to be offered the opportunity to stay there on what would have been our wedding weekend. So we highly recommend, if your wedding venue has a guest house, to ask if you can stay for the weekend. Or stay on property at the hotel your Room Block was booked with. This allows you to still feel connected to the places you feel in love with when you started planning your wedding.
Things to do - Keep it close. We stayed within a 5 miles radius of our venue. Which allowed for a leisurely weekend in Wine Country and had hiking, sightseeing, wine tasting and delicious food all within reach. An added bonus, a surprise brunch on the property with some of our family and wedding party! So if you’re local, consider looping in some of your loved ones and surprise your other half!
Other things to consider when planning for your weekend:
Reduced Hours of Operation
Reduced Seating Capacity
Reservations are 99.9% required
Face Masks are required in Sonoma County and are the responsible way to protect yourself and the community your are visiting
Be kind and be patient
Explore the path less traveled
Stay in & unplug - we played dice, enjoyed an evening fire and a nice bottle of wine
Dining - Whatever you are comfortable with. We opted for one night out and one night in. Our first evening we chose to dine out… on the patio, which was lovely.
Though I was still taken aback by how many people were out. But just like us, people were choosing to go out and for the most part guests adhered to the rules of wearing a mask when not seated at their tables.
Our second evening, we chose to dine alfresco on the deck of the guest cottage. And while we could have easily picked up togo food from a handful of local eateries, we reached out to our caterer to see if they could provide us with dinner… which they did! Again, we highly recommend this option if possible. This could be a paired down version of your wedding menu or something completely different to celebrate the occasion.
At the end of a short but sweet weekend, we were well rested and felt like it was still a special weekend. Though not the one we had originally hoped for. If you’re in a similar boat, know it’s okay to celebrate, to take a moment and create those important memories.
Cheers to next year! - Poppy & Vine