The Three Year Engagement with Bride Alaina

Bride to Have Been

In today’s world, trying to get married has become... a hot mess. So, to all the COVID brides to have been, grooms and wedding professionals: you’re not alone. Welcome to Bride To Have Been, a StudioPod original podcast hosted by Emily Lewis, with the purpose of building a community by sharing the reality of this new normal in the wedding industry. Let’s keep inspiring each other and celebrate the thing we treasure the most: love.

Alaina and her fiance Shane weren’t too worried when shelter-in-place orders started coming down last Spring. Afterall their wedding date was already set for April 2021 so it was hard to imagine there would still be issues by then. “Even up until November and December, we kept telling ourselves, ‘Next year we'll worry about it, and next year we'll worry about it.’ And now it's next year,” the bride-to-be told host Emily Lewis during her interview for the podcast. Ultimately the couple would decide to postpone their big dream wedding for almost another year making their already-long engagement stretch to four years in total.

Jump straight into:

(04:20) - Alaina on when she knew Shane was the one - “About two years into dating, I started badgering him with the ‘marry me’ every other day and then every day.”

(06:16) - The proposal - “I knew he was nervous and I didn't know why. And I remember at one point during dinner, I picked up his hand. I'm like, ‘Why are you so sweaty? What are you nervous about? Are you okay?’”

(08:24) - Alaina on dreaming of a big wedding - “The romance of weddings and brides was something I was drawn to while I was in school and working in the fashion industry.”

(10:42) - The couple’s initial reaction to the pandemic - “Even up until November and December, we kept telling ourselves, ‘Next year we'll worry about it, and next year we'll worry about it.’ And now it's next year.”

(14:39) - Why they decided to push their date back another year - “We figured what's the rush. People already waited two and a half years. We can wait another year.”

(15:39) - On finding a new date - “If we wanted to postpone for 2021, they only had one date in June and one date in July available that were Saturdays.”

(17:32) - Restrictions at their venue during the pandemic - “Just imagining the 50 people in this room that can hold 350 people, it just seems silly.”

(22:08) - Alaina on saving mementos from the entire process - “I've been keeping everything, our engagement party invitations and thank you notes, just as a scrapbook thing. I think it's another way that we can document this crazy experience.”

(28:26) - How Alaina and Shane have tried to grow - “The pandemic probably taught all of us being stuck at home, away from family and watching people we know and love get sick and just not knowing what's going to happen, that we have to cherish the day and be happy with what we have.”

Resources

Follow Alaina on Twitter

Follow Alaina on Instagram

Follow The Knot on Instagram

The Knot's Official Guidebook for COVID-19 Wedding Help

The Knot’s support hotline: [phone]

Book the Milleridge Cottage

Thanks for listening! Follow us on Instagram, don’t forget to use the #COVIDBrideTribe, and feel free to send us your COVID wedding stories. Bride To Have Been is a podcast brought to you by GiftPod and produced at StudioPod. Edits were made at Nodalab and music was produced by GaryOAKland. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and share with all of your fellow brides.