Sunday, March 15, 2020, the CDC came out and advised against gatherings of 50 or more. We stayed up until the wee hours of the morning contacting guests to see who was still planning on coming in order for us to trim numbers down accordingly. Monday, March 16, 2020, Adam, Ali and Gunnar were leaving Grand Rapids and headed to Kalamazoo for Ali's hair appointment. As soon as we pull into the parking lot, I (Ali) get a call from one of my MOHs stating that the president just mandated gatherings to be 10 or less. We were speechless. We needed time to get a game plan together. Wiping tears from her eyes, she headed into the salon. While sitting in the chair, she couldn't do anything else except for plan- my mind is always planning. Our biggest fear was that someone's parents were going to miss the biggest day of our lives and that alone was too much to consider. How were we going to get all of the members of our immediate families in one place? We called Adam's parents to see if they were still okay with flying to Florida. Without hesitation they agreed. Both of Adam's siblings also agreed to fly down for the wedding as well. Pieces of this broken puzzle were finally starting to come together. Tuesday, March 17, 2021, We decided to drive down to Florida to avoid airports and hopefully avoid the virus. We were just north of Kentucky when my brother, who is a police officer back home, calls and says he is hearing that government buildings are shutting down. We still need a marriage license and we need those building to be open to get it! At this point, the idea of our big wedding being cancelled wasn't even my biggest concern. I just wanted to be able to get married at this point. It could have been in a paper sack, or on the steps of a random courthouse in Tennessee wearing travel clothes (which actually almost happened) for all I cared at this point. Isn't it funny how when push comes to shove you start to realize what reaallyyyy matters.

Wednesday, March 18, 2020, We arrived home to Florida around 2am. Went right to sleep, but needed to be at the Clerk's Office in Tampa as soon as it opened to ensure we had a marriage license. Another small success in what seemed to be a story where so many things were going wrong. As soon as we had the marriage license, it was smooth sailing. The rest of the week was full of coordinating with vendors on contracts and things. Making sure they knew everything was shut down and there would be no big wedding. At the time, everyone thought this was only going to last a couple of weeks, so we were encouraged to postpone and not cancel. Most of our vendors wouldn't even consider refunds at this point (luckily they changed their minds later on). We also had to quickly scramble and throw some sort of honeymoon together as the original plan had us going to Mexico. March 21, 2020, finally came. Underneath a couple of oak trees that I grew up playing under, we were married. It was nothing like what we planned, but every bit as special, unique and full of love as any wedding sized big or small that you could imagine. We were married on my family's blueberry farm surrounded by our loved ones (and some of you even watched on Facebook!). My grandpa, who is one of the best humans to grace this planet became ordained and did us the honor of marrying us. Gunnar was able to be in the bridal party, we had some finger foods and ice cream cake and started in on the greatest journey we had yet to embark on. I think about the wedding we were supposed to have often. It was going to be beautiful. Full of fun and laughter with so many of you and complete with handcrafted details that I had spent countless hours creating. But you know what, I'm still just as thankful as ever that we got our day underneath the oak trees. We missed every single of one you that day, but we are so incredibly lucky to have you in our lives for more than just one day.