I think it’s safe to say that everyone has experienced more challenges in the last year than they might like. Learning how to deal with life in a global pandemic has been hard, and it has touched many aspects of people’s lives – personal, professional, health, family, social… the list goes on. Finding the good in the bad has been hard.
Let me start by saying I recognize that there are way bigger issues and adversities happening in the world beyond the story I’m about to share. Everyone has their own problems, and I know that in comparison to some real issues these days, what I’m about to share is not that serious. I’m not saying “poor me”, but rather wanted to share something that’s been happening in my life and the lessons I’ve learned from it.
PLANNING IN A PANDEMIC
In 2020, in the midst of all the craziness happening around us, I got engaged! I was so excited to start wedding planning and have something positive to look forward to. I jumped full-force into planning. I said yes to the dress, we secured our venue, we asked all of our bridesmaids and groomsmen to be a part of the day, we sent out invitations. We were committed and hoping that all would work out, despite the uncertainty of the year ahead.
We had plans, and I was looking forward to them! I wanted to marry my best friend and celebrate with all of my loved ones – including those that live far away. My sister would be flying in from Australia, and the best man would be flying in from Tokyo. We knew this would make things complicated but we needed to have our most important people there on our special day.
As the months went on and things continued to change, it was clear we needed to postpone the wedding.
WORTH THE WAIT
Having all of our loved ones together and being able to dance with our friends was really important to us, but wouldn’t be possible with the current conditions. We decided it was worth the wait. So we contacted all of our vendors, updated all of our guests, changed the date and tried to coordinate all of the details…for a second time.
After going through this process, I pinky swear I won’t ever complain again about trying to coordinate a Zoom meeting with 4 people on opposite schedules. You think that’s tricky? Try rescheduling an event with multiple vendors and a 25 person international wedding party in the middle of a pandemic! Talk about a jigsaw puzzle with 1000 pieces.
Even once we thought we had found a new solution, with 999 of the thousand pieces firmly in place… we faced some new curveballs. The new date conflicted with one of the groomsmen’s wedding date, and we were faced with the challenge of rescheduling our wedding… again.
FINDING THE GOOD IN THE BAD
I felt really defeated at first, cause honestly I just didn’t want to have to wait even longer to host this event I was SO looking forward to. After a few days of self-pitying, I realized that there can always be good that comes from the bad, if only we choose to see it. Keeping an open and optimistic mind will allow you to see opportunities amongst the newly carved path.
Although I was disappointed, we decided we’re going to take every small moment you could possibly celebrate in the lead up – The O.G wedding date, our new 1 year out, 6 months out, a shower, hopefully bachelor and bachelorette parties, who knows what else! Even if many of these lead up moments won’t be able to be with others (yet), Blake and I can celebrate!
We’re excited to enjoy being engaged and to soak it up. The time leading up to getting married is filled with so much anticipation, and we get to relish in that just a little bit longer!
There’s always a chance that the situation won’t be any different by this time next year, but at least we’ve given ourselves the opportunity to hope for the best (and now that we’re experts in rescheduling weddings, we’re ready for anything)!
WHAT WE’VE LEARNED
Maybe you weren’t planning to get married this year and you’re wondering why you’ve even read down this far into the blog lol (You mean to tell me that not everyone has weddings on the brain 24/7?!). I promise there are still some really valuable takeaways I learned from this process that can help you, regardless of the challenges you’re facing.
Whatever plan of yours was derailed this year (we’ve all had at least one!), I encourage you to think about these 3 things to help you find the good in the bad.
1. How can you make these circumstances count?
Maybe a derailed or postponed plan allows you time to tackle something you’ve been putting off forever. Maybe it enables you to find different ways of approaching it that is even better than what you had planned before? Does this open new doors, or give you new opportunities that didn’t exist before?
2. Make choices not sacrifices
In a time when everything feels so heavy, it’s really easy to feel like once one thing goes wrong, everything is flying off the handles. It’s easy to let one small challenge ruin your entire day. But, changing your mindset to focus on the good instead the bad gives you more control over the situation. You can decide that you’re going to see the positive in a situation, which creates a domino effect for your beliefs, actions and reality.
3. Stay present
I find that when my mind wanders, it can create a bad story. I find myself thinking “what if nothing changes? What if we do all of this planning and spend all of this money and we still don’t get what we want?!”. When I start going down this black hole, I remind myself to pause and stop speculating. We’ve made educated decisions and there’s no point in worrying and playing out the worst ending to the movie. Stay present, and focus on the things you can control, instead of all the things that could potentially go wrong.
