Disclaimer: This post is not intended to suggest events should be hosted during the Covid-19 pandemic. Please followCDC guidelinesand check your local city and state advisories on social gatherings.
My wife and I got married on August 23 with a handful of our close friends at a beautiful outdoor ceremony in Dublin, California, in the Bay Area. It was an intimate celebration filled with love and excitement. Through the lens of iPads hooked up to Facebook and YouTube Live, about 200 family and friends around the world watched along as we tied the knot.
I remember sometime during the Tiger King phase of quarantine, I started seeing a surge of online posts with the theme of “I had a quarantine wedding” — at this point we can all pinpoint our stay-at-home timeframe based on what was on Netflix. I remember thinking how difficult it must have been for those couples to not have their family physically present for one of the most important days of their lives.
But with so much uncertainty in the future, there was one thing that they all had in common — you can’t put love on hold.
There were times my wife and I planned and then unplanned this ceremony but after a lot of deliberation, we knew that if we took all of the necessary safety precautions we could pull off a vendor-free, contactless plan to create a memorable evening for all.
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Safety was of utmost importance to us; we limited the attending guests to friends that were within our social bubble and ensured they had tested negative 72 hours prior to the event. We took a DIY approach to everything and did not hire any vendors — we even did our own photography!
For starters we needed a venue. One of the main reasons we could even ideate having an event was because a family friend graciously reached out to host at their spacious backyard. Now all we had to do was make this look like a wedding. My wife tapped into all of her creative juices to produce the wedding inspo that she had garnered over the years. Luckily, having a knack for food and decor aesthetic is something she isn’t short of, just check out her Instagram 😍.
I’m about to drop a million-dollar reality TV show idea: Say Yes to the Dress — South Asian Edition. I hope the makers of Indian Matchmaking catch onto that one.
For most South Asian weddings, deciding on an outfit and getting it shipped from the motherland can take a long time. We knew we wanted something traditional, though, so we passed on our sizes to family in Toronto so they could ship us outfits that would arrive on time. Check us out in our pre-wedding photoshoots at some of our favorite spots in the city:
Literally everything else was off Amazon. I kid you not, I actually made a shoutout to Amazon Prime in my wedding speech. Two-day delivery for plates, tablecloths, string lights, and everything else under the sun.
As if a global pandemic wasn’t enough, we even had outdoor ACs and fans as we were in the middle of a Bay Area heatwave (with temperatures reaching 37°C) and drifting smoke from nearby forest fires.
Yes, California has fast-forwarded to the apocalypse but I’ll continue to keep saying “West Coast, best coast.” 👀
All in all, it was a memorable night for us and our close knit social bubble. We managed to FaceTime many of our virtual guests as many of our family and friends hosted their own watch parties abroad. The outpouring of love and excitement was everything for us.
Looking back it’s quite ironic that I had a virtual wedding. Back in the summer of 1986, my parents themselves had a long-distance telephone wedding.
My dad was living in Canada and couldn’t travel to Bangladesh at the time due to immigration restrictions. Amid the uncertainty, they prioritized their future in Canada as the best move for their future.
But just like us, they had one mindset in common —
You can’t put love on hold.
