Allison and Mark’s Fantastic Wedding in the time of COVID

As you can probably guess, this wedding was not supposed to happen the way that it did.  The original plan was to have the wedding and reception in mid-August, and have roughly 150 family and guests in attendance.  But as we all know, this little thing called COVID made an appearance this spring and turned everyone’s lives upside down.  But Allison and Matthew decided that they were still going to have their wedding in spite of COVID and the limitations that were imposed on what they could do, and they created a wonderful and memorable event.

Some Background

Allison and Matthew met a couple of years ago at a conference.  Matthew was a grad student at UCLA, and Allison was an undergrad at USC.  Despite the fact that Bruins and Trojans are supposed to be bitter rivals, they hit it off and soon began dating.  Things progressed, and early last winter they decided that they would get married.  Allison would be a rising senior this summer, so the plans were made knowing that she would be returning to USC for her senior year late in August.  We “met” in mid-February; they found me online, and all of our initial contacts were by email and phone calls.  We hit it off and they hired me to be their photographer.

We all know what happened in mid-March.  The coronavirus was spreading throughout the world, and suddenly all kind of businesses, schools and activities were being closed or put on hold.  No one knew what was going to happen in the next few months, not to mention in the next year or more.  I spoke with Matthew about whether they were going to hold their wedding as planned.  He and Allison were not positive about their plans, but were still planning on having the wedding if it was possible to do so.  Then in the beginning of June Allison learned that the start date for classes at USC was being changed due to COVID.  The new start date was only one day after their scheduled wedding date of August 16.  That was not going to work for them, so they needed to move the wedding to an earlier date.  Fortunately(?) my own summer wedding schedule had been completely disrupted by the virus, with almost all of the weddings I had booked for Summer 2020 being shifted to Summer 2021.  The date they were now interested in having their wedding was now open, so they reset the date to July 18, which I now had open.

I have been a wedding photographer for more than 40 years, and I know how much work goes into planning a wedding.  So I understood how much extra work and stress that Matthew and Allison were going through as they had to re-do many of their preparations.  Not to mention that huge extra stress of trying to do all of this with COVID looming over all of us!  Of course, as they were revamping their wedding day plans no one knew what restrictions might be in place on the wedding date.  Clearly the number of guests would need to be largely reduced, and a new location for the reception would need to be found since their venue had already announce they would be closed through July at least.  The decision was made to hold the reception at the same church where the ceremony would take place, and we would make a trip to the nearby beach for photos between the ceremony and reception.

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The Wedding Day

The day of the wedding dawned with great weather, with the forecast for the day being sunny and temps in the mid-70s.  Pretty near perfect conditions for a wedding!  Not too hot for the guys in their tuxedos, and warm enough for the ladies in their dresses.  I met with some of the family members for some pre-ceremony photos at The Cove, which is where the reception had been originally scheduled to take place.  Even though we could not use the clubhouse for the reception, we were still able to use the beautiful grounds of the club for some photos.  Allison did not come to The Cove for this session, since she and Matthew had decided that they would not see each other until the wedding ceremony.  So we did some photos with various family groups from both Allison’s and Matthew’s sides.

As soon as we took care of these photos everyone headed back to the church, which was only a couple of miles away.  Since all of the wedding planning had been done by email and phone this was my first time meeting Allison and Matthew.  This is pretty unusual, I almost always am able to meet my brides and grooms in advance of the wedding day.  But the combination of crazy timetables for Matthew and Allison plus the issues of COVID made meeting before the date impractical.  Once I reached the church I headed straight to the Bride’s Room to introduce myself to Allison, and to see if I was going to have a chance to take a few “getting ready” photos in the dressing room with Allison, her bridesmaids and her mother.  Allison was understandably quite focused on the upcoming ceremony, but we were able to exchange a few words and I was able to get a few shots of the ladies as they finished their preparations.

Guests were beginning to arrive, and I headed to the reception hall to get some photos of everything while everything was still untouched by the guests.  The room looked great, with beautiful decorations.  The one part of the room that brought COVID realities to mind was the bar, where the bartender would be separated from the guests by a clear plastic barrier.

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The Ceremony

After getting my photos of the reception hall I moved back to the chapel to set up for the ceremony.  Guests were now taking their seats and the ceremony would begin soon.  Many of the guests, though not everyone, were wearing masks.  As guests entered the church their temperature was taken.  Because the number of family and guests was quite small it was easy for each family group to distance themselves from other groups in the chapel.

Finally the moment everyone had been waiting for, the entrance of Allison and her father Torque.  Torque handed Allison off to Matthew and the ceremony began.  It was a very well done ceremony, officiated by Alexander Watlington.  My favorite part was the trumpet player, George Steward.  I played trumpet in my high school band many years ago and still really love listening to a good trumpet player, and George was outstanding!  In all of the years I have been shooting weddings this is the first time there has been a trumpet player as part of the ceremony.

Also on the altar for the ceremony were bridesmaids Victoria Friend, Alison McMillan (sister of the groom), Carolyn Scott and Gabriela Watson along with groomsmen John Bodett, Bret Heddleston, Brendan McMillan (brother of the groom) and Joshua Zubeck (brother of the bride).

At the conclusion of the ceremony we took a few family photos with some larger groups including the grandparents.  Then the entire wedding party as well as both Matthew and Allison’s parents jumped into our cars to head back to The Cove for some more photos.

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The Reception

Once we all made it back to The Cove we took care of the family photos that could not be done earlier; kind of hard to get all those crucial family shots without the bride!  Once the family photos were complete I sent all of the parents back to the church so they could let all of the guests know that the bride, groom and wedding party would be joining the party soon.  Meanwhile I took Allison, Matthew and the rest of the wedding party to several different places for photos.  Because it was such a beautiful day the beach was very busy, with a LOT of people enjoying the sunshine.  So our ability to take photos there without lots of photo-bombers was not too good.  Still, we had  a fun time.  About halfway through the session I sent the wedding party back to the church, and just kept Allison and Matthew for a few last photos.  Then we also headed back to the church so the reception could finally get fully underway.

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Once the whole wedding party was back at the church we were able to arrange a Grand Entrance of the newlyweds, with their wedding party leading the way.  From this point on it was a pretty typical wedding reception, except for all of the people who were wearing masks!  As at most places I have been recently, mask use varied greatly, with some people wearing their mask whenever they were not actually eating or drinking, and others never wearing a mask.  You’ll see examples of this in the photos below.

Dinner was fantastic, with a choice of salmon or steak; I had the salmon and it was wonderful.  Matthew and Allison had decided not to have a traditional wedding cake, and instead had some fantastic mini-cakes and pies served to all of the guests.  So no cake-smashing by either the bride or groom! 😉

After dinner there were traditional toasts followed by the tossing of the bouquet.  Then we moved into the dancing.  I had not been certain just what was going to happen with dancing.  The DJ had canceled about a week before the wedding due to concerns about COVID, so some friends of Allison and Matthew were filling in with music on a computer.  The First Dance for the newlyweds was amazing!  I had no idea that both Matthew and Allison were good dancers, and they had done some serious rehearsing for this dance.  The result was one of the best first dances that I have seen in the over 1200 weddings that I have photographed.

But it was not just Mathew and Allison who were good dancers!  Allison’s dance with her father Torque was remarkable; it was clear that they have danced together many times, and they really tore up the floor!  When the rest of the guests then made their way to the dance floor I was more than a little bit shocked at how many of the crowd really knew how to dance.  Swing dancing was the dance of choice for most of the evening, and I saw several moves that I have never seen at another wedding before now.  The floor was very busy for well over an hour, and surprisingly most of the dancers wore masks the entire time.

Finally it was time for the party to come to an end.  The guests all moved to the parking lot, where they all grabbed a sparkler so they could give Allison and Matthew a good send-off.  Once everyone had lit their sparklers and I had them organized in parallel lines, Matthew and Allison walked between the sparkler holders on the way to their getaway car.  It was a great end to a great wedding!