During COVID-19, are microweddings the next big thing in Charlotte?
.jpg "Brittany and Curtis Wright celebrated a North Corner Haven wedding in August, with florals by Proper Flower, and urge other couples to host small, intimate ceremonies.")
Brittany Sturdivant and Curtis Wright were together for nine years and engaged for two when they first put their wedding plans on hold.
Curtis left his former job, bought an 18-wheeler and started his own business. The financial investment led them to postpone their wedding.
“I was a little bummed because we already have two kids,” Brittany said. “He kind of had to bring me back to reality. Of course, we could’ve gone to the courthouse, but that’s not what I wanted to do, so we decided to wait.”
Then a global pandemic decided to appear. “Once COVID happened, we thought it was best to keep our wedding on hold.”
It wasn’t that she wanted to wait to get married — but she knew COVID-19 would prevent her from having the bigger wedding she had dreamed of. She also worried that her family would be upset.
“I was thinking more about people than ourselves,” Brittany said. But the more she thought about it, the more she knew that she didn’t want to put it off anymore. “That was the second time it was getting away. We don’t really know when this is going to be over, so I didn’t want to postpone it again.”
During COVID-19, what are the alternatives to a big wedding?
The couple tied the knot on Aug. 15, 2020, at North Corner Haven, surrounded by their immediate family.
When the Wrights decided to postpone their wedding celebrations, they’d not heard of North Corner Haven before, but Brittany saw an Instagram post about the farm’s weddings.
“We toured the venue in May and got married in August,” Brittany said.
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Our day was magical. It was a rainy day, but once I walked out of the cottage with my dad, the rain stopped,” Brittany said. “We got married inside the barn, and it was such a beautiful setup.”
Brittany said she would “do it all over again in a heartbeat,” and advises couples not to put their love on hold due to COVID-19.
“Get married on your original date, but have something smaller and more intimate. We don’t know how long this pandemic is going to last, but you can always have a bigger celebration later.”
The Wrights are among many couples forced to adjust their plans during COVID-19. We’ve seen a last-minute backyard wedding in lieu of one in Spain, a Florida wedding relocated to Lake Wylie — and, of course, wedding cancellations.
Large weddings are so last year
Restrictions related to gatherings have made planning for those who’ve decided to move forward with a 2020 wedding even more difficult. It’s already stressful to create a guest list without leaving out loved ones — and only gets worse when you need to make it smaller.
Some couples have given up on the idea of a wedding altogether and instead are choosing to elope. A Wall Street Journal interview with an elopement planner showed recent interest in elopements is at an all-time high, as “large group gatherings are now risky and out of vogue.”
But what about the couples who still want to celebrate with family and friends but can no longer execute a large gathering? Enter: the microwedding.
The Knot 2019 Real Weddings Study revealed that the average cost for a wedding (not including the honeymoon) was a whopping $33,900. Microweddings, on the other hand, offer the same celebrations and perks but on a smaller scale. Refinery 29 spoke to 14 couples about their microwedding plans and found that the costs ranged from $373 to $9524 this year, and some brides and grooms still planned to have a larger ceremony next year.
A venue pivots to microweddings amid the pandemic
Amid the COVID-19 wedding pandemic, venues and vendors have been forced to pivot, either on a small scale by enhancing health and safety protocols, or on a large scale to continue to book weddings.
North Corner Haven, a farm in Lancaster, South Carolina, about 20 minutes south of Ballantyne, was founded by the Dooley family in 1972. It sprawls over 600 acres of mixed hardwood forest, pasture and ponds and is home to the operational farm. Before the pandemic, North Corner Haven was renting its venue out for Saturday weddings for $9,000 and up.
Now, its microwedding packages begin at just $1,500 for two and up to $6,700 for the couple and 48 guests. This selection includes photography by Amy Ledyard Photography, food and florals from Proper Flower.
“We were brainstorming creative ways to expand our offerings at North Corner Haven. In response to the evolving pandemic, we were drawn to more intimate, turn-key weddings,” said Catherine Dooley, director of sales and brand experience. “Pulling on our team’s combined 35 years of event experience, we were excited to provide couples with these new packages curated so that guests can still celebrate at our venue, just on a smaller scale.”
The venue has hosted four microweddings since August, and more are planned for the fall.
From “feasible” to “fairy tale”
Once COVID-19 arrived, Kathryn Robertson and Logan Aggeles feared they’d need to cancel their wedding or settle for a small wedding at Brittany’s parents’ house, with only the couple’s parents in attendance.
“This was not my ideal wedding plan, but at the time, I thought it was the only feasible option in light of COVID,” Kathryn said.
To remedy the situation, the couple visited North Corner Haven. It was the first venue they considered, and they immediately knew it was the ideal space to hold their union.
“The moment I stepped on the property of North Corner Haven, I knew I wanted my wedding to be there,” Kathryn said. “The atmosphere was so peaceful and the property was absolutely beautiful. It felt serene and everything I had imagined for my wedding. It felt almost magical. The staff at North Corner Haven were absolutely amazing from the first moment we met. I just knew it was a match.”
On Aug. 29, 2020, “our wedding felt like a fairy tale,” Kathryn said.
In attendance were immediate family members and a few close friends. “We felt we were able to still be safely distanced and take precautions with that amount of people,” Kathryn said.
“It made it seamless and so much easier to plan,” Aggeles said. “North Corner Haven put us in contact with our florist and our photographer and we met virtually via Zoom and phone calls for all our planning. Even though our meetings and discussions were not in person they still went great and everything turned out even better than expected.”
“We loved our intimate wedding, it felt so special and personal. I’m not sure we would have been able to have that same intimacy and closeness with our loved ones if we were able to have a large wedding,” Kathryn said.
As with all things related to COVID-19, there was a virtual loophole to their small gathering. “All of our extended family and our friends were able to join in live via Zoom to watch us get married also, so it felt like they were still there with us. It all turned out perfectly.”
This story was originally published October 19, 2020 at 11:45 AM.
