A wedding day is one of the most memorable and important days in a couple’s life. People spend months, sometimes years, planning out all the details. This was the case for local couple Becky Mentuck and Darryl Wolfe, who planned to have a big wedding with their family and friends in April.

However, due to COVID-19, their wedding day turned out vastly different than what they had in mind.

Almost every week in March and April, the province’s social distancing rules changed. In mid-March, the rules stated that public gatherings had to be limited to 100 people or less. The couple made changes accordingly. Then those limits dropped to 50, and the couple decided to just invite family members.

Finally, the government brought that number down to 10.

“Everything leading up to our wedding was pretty stressful,” Becky says. “We had to make so many changes in a span of three weeks.”

The couple ultimately decided that even though their guests couldn’t attend, it was important for them to officially get married on the day they had chosen.

“We decided our parents would stand up for us,” Becky says.

When the bride heard that her wedding would be such a small affair, she tried to quickly order a dress online and save her original wedding dress for a later date. However, the back-up dress didn’t arrive in time.

“The night before, I decided to wear my wedding dress because Darryl hadn’t seen it yet, and he really wanted to see me in it on the day of our wedding,” she says. “I got into my dress, my mom helped button me up, and we had our first look in my parents’ house. My dad set up a soundboard and speaker so we would have music to walk out to.”

To keep physical contact to a minimum, Becky did her own hair and makeup.

“The day of our wedding was overcast and windy. We had planned our ceremony outside for 1:00 p.m. When that time came around, it had started to rain. We didn’t really notice, because we were both excited and nervous. It ended up being a beautiful day for us, regardless of the weather and circumstances.”

Although the couple had a small ceremony, they were surprised by family and friends later that day.

“Afterward, we were paraded down to the Niverville DQ by our families. They ‘dressed’ up their vehicles with balloons and wrote on the windows. We both cried when we saw they had done that for us.”

The newlyweds had booked an all-inclusive honeymoon in Mexico right after the wedding, which obviously had to be cancelled.

“The travel agency we used ended up emailing us and saying even though we didn’t have cancellation insurance, we would be getting airline travel credits and our hotel was refunding us the full amount of what we had paid.”

This was a huge relief to the couple.

Depending on when the government lifts social distancing guidelines, Becky and Darryl tentatively plan to celebrate with their friends and family at a later date, similar to how they originally planned. The venues they chose all graciously allowed them to simply move the date without losing their investment.

“We are going to have our reception/celebration hopefully in October,” Becky says of making the best of a bad situation. “We will be doing a ‘renewal’ ceremony so our friends and family can watch us get remarried.”