I got married!

You would think with most of the world in shut-down mode that I would have had time to blog a lot this summer. Not the case! As most of you know, I work for a large animal veterinarian and we are considered "essential" so I've been working my normal hours the whole year. On top of that, I was planning my wedding during the pandemic. We picked the date of September 19th, 2020 at the end of last year before most of us had heard anything about Corona Virus. Since I was in the thick of the planning process as the world started to shut down, I felt so bad for the brides who had spring and early summer weddings and were all of a sudden scrambling to reschedule. Aside from some drama in the month leading up to our big day, we were fortunate to have a relatively stress-free time planning the wedding. There were times where it felt like my anxiety was going to start to kick into high gear, but luckily I had a groom who knows me well and can tell when I'm starting to get worked up.

The advice I heard the most throughout the whole planning process was to not stress too much about the small stuff and to make sure I enjoyed the day. In the months and weeks leading up to the wedding, Andrew and I kept saying how easy the process felt... we kept thinking, when is this going to get stressful? We had the most fantastic coordinator to work with at our venue - The Lodges at Gettysburg - and I'm pretty sure the reason that planning seemed easy was because of how on top of things she was. She was excellent about communicating with us and staying on top of the always changing COVID regulations. I highly recommend doing your research before you look at venues. One of the initial places we thought about getting married was The Links at Gettysburg since I'm so into golf. When Andrew read the reviews, he kept seeing negative comment after negative comment about the events coordinator there, with some couples even going so far as to say this lady ruined their wedding day. On the flip side of that, all of the reviews for The Lodges were glowing.

We were blessed with an absolutely beautiful day. The weather was perfect and the sun was shining. As I walked down the aisle, a bunch of people commented that the sun was shining behind me and really made my dress stand out. I tell them that was my dad shining down. There were parts about the day that I thought I would be more emotional than I was, but I think I was full of adrenaline and some of my emotions didn't kick in until later when I had more time to actually think about the day. I absolutely missed dad with all of my heart, but my brother, Greg, was there to walk me down the aisle, and Andrew's dad danced with me during the father/daughter dance. Nobody can ever replace dad, but I very much appreciated the gestures to stand in for my father since he wasn't here.

I don't really have anything to say about mental health in this blog post... it's more of a life update, but I am so grateful for everyone who helped me during the planning process and the day of the wedding. I know that the reason my anxiety never kicked into high gear was because of the wonderful people around me who helped make the day so special! 👰🤵💒🌞💖