Cancelled & Post
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wedding day is one of the happiest and loveliest lifetime events. But try to imagine the absolute heartbreak of being told it cannot go ahead as planned – or even at all. This was the upsetting reality for tens of thousands of people, as coronavirus tore through the world. More than 70,000 weddings and civil partnerships across the country had to be cancelled or postponed. All those days, sometimes years
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of planning, the anticipation and excitement, and the desire for two people to commit themselves to one another for the rest of their lives – not to mention pre-wedding events and a honeymoon, were rippd to shreds. It is almost unbearable to imagine the disappointment faced by so many couples. On March 23, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that all civil partnerships and weddings were banned. From that date until an unknown time in the future,
they simply could not go ahead. It sounds harsh to read these words back now, but at the beginning of 2020, things had already started to deteriorate so fast due to COVID that this move wasn’t actually surprising. Before Lockdown had been officially announced, the Church Of England had already cut weddings down to a bare minimum, for example, allowing only the couple getting married, two witnesses and the religious official. Travel restrictions had already
been heavily introduced, so many marriages which were due to take place in sun soaked faraway climes already had to be reorganised. The same was true of UK weddings with guests flying in from abroad. The global pandemic saw partners either postpone or cancel their ceremonies and celebrations, with many raising a glass to themselves on the dates during Lockdown when their actual weddings should have been. Some even had virtual wedding ceremonies.
