Now that it’s crystal clear that hosting a wedding at this time is just not possible due to the spread of COVID-19, we’re sharing the experiences of real couples navigating the re-scheduling or cancellation process in an attempt to help others make informed decisions and to spread our support to all during this time.
Katherine Lin, who postponed her April wedding on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, is sharing how she and her husband, Edward Kim, made the final call and decided to elope in Boston.
During the first week of March, after Kathy had just come back to Boston from her first dress fitting in New York and her bachelorette weekend in Portland, she and Edward decided to postpone their wedding to September of 2020. “A majority of my family lives in Taiwan, including my grandmother, who I’m especially close to,” Kathy says. “A lot of my guests and bridal party also live internationally and out of state. I didn’t want to risk and jeopardize the health of our guests and vendors. Two days after we made the decision to postpone and notified our guests, Governor Cuomo announced the New York shutdown, so we knew our decision was ultimately the right one.”
After a few days of sadness and anger over having to let go of a wedding that had been in the making for a year-and-a-half, Kathy decided she couldn’t let COVID-19 ruin everything, and she and Edward decided to commemorate their original date and get legally married. At first, they were going to elope in Central Park, but then city halls in New York shut down, so they couldn’t get a license. The two shifted their attention to Boston, where they live, and rushed to city hall before it closed.
“Planning this elopement was therapeutic for me and helped me recover from the disappointment of postponing,” the bride says. Over the next month, she jogged around their neighborhood, near the Back Bay Fens, to scout out the best ceremony spot. In front of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston’s cherry blossoms had started to bloom, and since she and Edward had planned to go to Japan for their honeymoon, they knew it was the location where they were to be married.
Kathy found an amazing group of vendors through social media. She wanted her bouquet, in particular, to look wild and natural, and Lorinda from Sweet Talk Floral created something unique and more amazing than the bride had imagined. Best of all, she was able to create a flower collar for the couple’s puppy, Truffle.
Since her wedding dress was still being altered at Saks, Kathy decided to wear her rehearsal dinner dress—a Self Portrait star-patterned lace design. She completed her look with Alexandre Birman black sequin Clarita sandals, a pearl headband, and Lele Sadoughi Crystal Lily earrings.
On the morning of their ceremony, the temperature dropped to 30-degrees and it started to snow, but thankfully by noon, the flurries had stopped. Kathy, Eddie, and Truffle made their way over to the empty park to meet their officiant. “I had to concentrate on not crying because I did my own makeup and didn’t use waterproof eye-liner or mascara,” Kathy says. After the ceremony, they took some pictures around the park and headed home.
For dinner, they “splurged” and ordered Korean BBQ, as a nod to Eddie’s heritage. Kathy ordered desserts from the Japanese bakery a block away from their apartment, and they cut a slice of strawberry cake for their cake cutting ceremony. After the meal, they had several video chats with close friends and family to celebrate.
“While April 18th didn’t turn out as we planned, it was still an amazingly memorable and fun day,” Kathy says. “I’m glad I decided to elope. Admittedly, some days I still have waves of sadness about the postponement, but this whole experience reminded me why I love my husband so much, and I can’t wait to start this new chapter with him. And I know this will make for an amazing story to tell our future generation.”
