When Covid Cancels Your Wedding, Plan an Anniversary Party.

Dec 20

Sometimes life happens in a way that's completely unexpected and out of your control. As a planner, I have a hard time reckoning with these experiences but looking back, I always say it was meant to be. That’s how I feel about my wedding. I had an incredible wedding - split into two events, a year apart - and I wouldn’t change a thing.

If you don’t remember, read this blog post to best understand what happened to us in December 2021. Long story short, we were planning an “Erev Christmas Eve Party” at Shun Lee West - an epic black tie disco to celebrate the Jewish tradition of eating Chinese Food on Christmas. I wanted to plan something different and unique - that didn’t feel like work (remember, I’m a wedding planner)! But, Omicron had other plans and we canceled the wedding with 48 hours notice and replanned an intimate at-home affair.

We were happily married at my parents house, and proceeded to have a VERY busy 2022. So busy that I barely saw my new husband. Between his midweek travels and my weekend work, it was quite a year. May through November was a whirlwind; I worked almost every weekend, I was incredibly stressed, and honestly didn’t make enough time for my husband. I finished my last wedding on November 6th and it wasn’t until then that I decided we needed to celebrate.

We needed to close our wedding chapter. We needed to refocus our energy on each other and we deserved to have the Shun Lee celebration we had dreamed of for so long. So, we sent out invites mid November for a December 10 celebration, and planned a party.

It was just that - a party! We hired Fabrico to install a red dance floor and hot pink LED lighting (I had this funny red/pink tonal vision happening), chose a menu with Shun Lee (all buffet - didn’t want to distract people from dancing), hired a DJ, and figured out how to use our paper goods and accessories from Suite Paperie from the canceled 2021 wedding.

December 10 came around and it was not a wedding. I insisted it was a party to celebrate us, our coming birthdays, and the end of a very busy year. I wore my original wedding jumpsuit for the first hour and Eric wore a modified version of his tux. I then changed into my party outfit.

We danced all night with our friends and family. We had an epic horah, followed by a mix of motown and 90s/2000s club ragers. Energy was high - people were clearly ready to party with us. It was 5 hours of the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life. And Eric and I have an incredible memory that we will share forever that also allowed us the freedom to break the cycle of busy-ness and stress that defined our 2022.

Our anniversary party was the party I always wanted. It was a dream come true. One year ago, we had an incredible wedding - an intimate ceremony and dinner at my parents house in Rye. One year later, we had the party of a lifetime at Shun Lee. I couldn’t have dreamed it up better myself. Sometimes - life has a way of working and you just have to roll with the punches. You can only plan or predict so much…says the planner!