The Pandemic’s Long-Lasting Effects on Weddings
Editor’s Note: This article is part of Uncharted, a series about the world we’re leaving behind, and the one being remade by the pandemic.
In a normal year, lots of Americans (myself included) would be getting ready to attend summer weddings right about now—steam-ironing new suits and sundresses, ordering gifts for the happy couples, writing toasts, rehearsing dance steps, securing vacation days to travel out of town. But as we all well know by now, 2020 is no normal year. The global pandemic and the social-distancing policies that have been put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 have effectively ruled out large gatherings and made many people, in particular the elderly, much more hesitant to go far from home.
En masse, weddings have been dramatically downsized, postponed, or canceled. The gauzy, fluttery dress I bought in February to wear to a friend’s now-postponed May wedding hangs solemnly in my closet, a delicate question mark suspended in the air. The virtually nonexistent wedding season of 2020 promises
