NORTH BAY — Justin Corbeil proposed to his girlfriend, Tory Keyes, at a Michael Buble concert last July.
Keyes started to plan the wedding the next day, but last week, they had to reschedule their wedding – planned for this fall - to next year due to COVID-19.
“I needed a whole month to process it. My fiance was really good about that because he knew that was the right decision and he kind of just let me take the time to figure that out,” says Keyes.
But the couple is trying to look on the bright side of things.
“It gives us a little bit more freedom financially,” says Corbeil. “Instead of pressing it in just over a year, we extended the savings to add another year to that. So it wasn't a total heartbreak. It was an understanding that it was the best thing to do.
“Our family and friends are really supportive.”
The vendors and services they have worked with also have been understanding.
“I was very worried to tell the vendors. I didn't know how they were going to respond, but the feedback I've received from every single one of them has been incredible,” Keyes says. “I've talked to a few other brides who have canceled (their) weddings and they haven't been as fortunate as I have.”
Corbeil says they had enough time to reschedule.
“It probably could have been painful,” he says. “I imagine it has been painful for some people, especially the ones that had weddings that were, you know, either booked during this pandemic that's going on right now or just shortly thereafter.”
Kayla Hawkins and her fiance, Brian Johnson, also planned to get married this summer, but they have rescheduled the event for July of 2021.
Their stag and doe was planned for mid-April, and it was going to help pay for some of the costs.
Their wedding was going to be hosted on her fiance’s family farm, but they still lost $800 worth of meat for her family to prepare for the meals.
Hawkins is trying to focus on the positives.
They just bought their first house, were in the middle of renovations, and the delay gives them time “to focus on that and making sure that we finalize our wedding plans” so the celebration will be “exactly what we want it to be.”
One of Hawkins’ biggest concerns is her great-grandmother.
“She’s 102. I thought she was going to be able to make it to this one in August, but because of her age, you just never know. So pushing out another year will be a little bit of a gamble.”
Danika Hammond and her fiance, Dave McCann, are still holding on, hoping they can still have their wedding in September on their property in Burk’s Falls.
Everything but the dress alterations on her gown are ready to go, Hammond says.
She has put a lot of time into personalizing her wedding, everything from creating the wedding décor to growing the flowers, and she is even planning on DJ-ing her own wedding.
They will reschedule their wedding if the social isolation conflicts with her wedding date, but Hammond says with or without a wedding party, she will elope, with only a small group of family members if it comes down to that.
“We're pretty easy-going, we'd like for it to go on,” she says. “But we may have to just do the elopement, unfortunately. That's nothing that I've ever wanted to do. Right now, they're saying 18 months to two years [of social distancing].
“I'm not going to wait that long.”
As a wedding DJ, Hammond says she can sympathize with couples who are struggling to reschedule or who have to cancel their weddings.
“It’s hard to get your vendors to all accommodate for a whole other date. If you're set on your photographer, your DJ, your videographer, your venue . . . It's hard to say OK, now this is the new date.”
Angela Bodick had everything planned for her wedding set for July before COVID-19 forced her to reschedule her summer wedding.
“Absolutely everything was completely organized. From the shoes to the makeup to the flowers,” says Bodick.
“We had planned this probably well over two years ago. We were just being proactive and really wanted to make our wedding as seamless as possible for our guests. We really didn't have much further planning to do.”
Bodick has pushed her wedding back a year, using the same venue at Mel Gibson Ranch.
Bodick and her fiance’s reaction to the cancellation is no surprise.
“We were both really upset,” she says. “This is our second marriage for both of us. So it was a bit of a do-over for us in terms of wanting to get married again.”
Bodick had planned for 180 guests and was spending around $28,000 on her entire wedding. She says they originally picked the date as her fiance’s birthday is July 16 and Bodick’s is July 17.
“We thought it would be memorable to get married on the 18th of July.”
Fortunately for Bodick and her fiance, Stephan Davia, they were able to reschedule their photographer, venue and caterer.
Bodick says one of the perks of pushing back the wedding date just means there is more time to save up money for the wedding and to get into shape.
“So in terms of what we're missing out, we're not. We just set back another year, except we're both getting older. We can do this anytime,” says Bodick.
