COVID-19 has taken a lot out of most of us. So much of what we used to take for granted, especially socially, has transitioned into a new normal that looks like it's here to stay for the foreseeable future. This means a lot of kids won't be going to school. A lot of us will be missing out on live music at concerts. And weddings? Yeah, that's definitely something that has to be switched up in a major way. All of the people. All of the food. No social distancing. Not to mention that if you're trying to travel to another state or country (or people are trying to travel to where you live), that's totally up in the air too, due to different places having different mandates on how long you should quarantine once you go (or they come) elsewhere.
Lawd. All of the constant shifting really is enough to drive an engaged couple crazy—at the very least, push them to their complete and total limit. If you're someone who falls into this category, first let me say that I'm sorry 2020 has played out in such a drastic and even semi-dramatic way for you. Wedding planning is stress-filled enough without trying to make it happen during a pandemic. But if you're looking for a few suggestions on how to give yourself, at least a little bit more peace of mind, this article could help you to relax, relate, release and figure out what to do now that will still make your wedding day one of the best days of your entire life.
Meet with Your Wedding Planner
The first thing you should do is set up an appointment with your wedding planner, whether that's meeting with them in person, by phone or a video conference call. Remember that the reason you hired them in the first place was because they are experts when it comes to making sure that your wedding day goes smoothly and also connecting with venues and vendors so that you can get the best rates possible.
While COVID-19 is new to all of us, postponing or canceling a wedding is something that any reputable wedding planner should be able to handle with a good amount of ease. They can talk to you about what some of your options are, the amount of money venues and vendors are willing to refund back to your account(s), and they can share with you if, in their opinion, it's better to push the date back at the same place you already had booked (in order to possibly not lose any of the money that you've already spent) or to cancel altogether and go a totally different route.
(If you don't have a wedding planner and you were doing everything on your own, the website Here Comes the Guide has offered up a list of 40 different questions to ask a venue about your wedding during this particular pandemic. You can check those questions out here.)
Check on What Mandates Your Mayor Has Put into Place
If you still want to move forward with your original wedding plans, the next thing that you should do is check with your mayor's office to see what the mandates are as it relates to COVID-19 in your city. The reason why I say "mayor" instead of "governor" is because, if you're like me, I live in a city that has a health department that is separate from the rest of the state. This means that my mayor can put other plans in place than the governor does. Knowing what "phase" your city is in and how long it plans to be that way can play another intricate role in how you should move forward. All you need to do is go to your favorite search engine and put "mayor's office" and "COVID-19" in the search field. It should automatically pull up a page with details about how your city is currently handling the pandemic—and for how long it will be doing it that way.
How About Throwing a Virtual Engagement Party or Bridal Shower (in the Meantime)?
Say that your wedding is planned but it's scheduled for some time next year. While it's still up in the air if the pandemic will directly affect your wedding day, it could alter your engagement or bridal shower plans. If that's what you're currently contemplating, an option to consider is throwing something that is virtual. Most cities/states are allowing small gatherings to take place, so why not have a few friends (around 10 or so) come over and then invite everyone else to join you online? You can shoot an online invitation to the people who you'd like to participate, along with a dress code and menu of what you'll be eating, should they want to pick up some of the items and join in with you. As far as the music for your party goes, you can create a streaming playlist for the event and then share it with the guests who RSVP. When it comes to toasting you and your boo, if you want to have a favorite bottle delivered to your guests (or specifically to your wedding party or family members), Drizly is an alcohol delivery service that can totally help you out. If it's a bridal shower and folks want to give you presents, you can still create a gift registry as usual (only have those items mailed to you directly). Or, you can point them in the direction of a site like Givingli, where they can purchase a gift card for you and yours from the convenience of their own smartphone.
Ask Yourself If You’d Prefer to Get Married Now and Have a Wedding Later
An engaged couple that I worked with had big time wedding plans for this past spring. It was set to be a destination wedding, but with this pandemic (and states and airlines) being all over the place, they decided to push their wedding back. In February, they tentatively rescheduled their wedding for this coming fall. But since folks out here don't wanna wear masks or stay in the house (SMDH), with talks of a second (or even third) wave coming, they decided to push their wedding date back indefinitely. Problem is, although they already live together, this has put a real strain on their relationship, mostly because one of them has semi-recently had a spiritual change of heart and isn't comfortable simply just living together anymore (especially with no "change of status" in sight).
When I presented to them the option of getting married now and having a wedding or reception later, they both said, "We want everyone to be present for our day and we want to do it on the beach." When I responded with, "What if that is a year or two from now?", you could hear the deep sighs through the phone.
Listen, if there are two things that this pandemic is teaching us, it's 1) life doesn't always go how we want it to and 2) we've got to seize the day and make the most of every moment. If getting married, eventually, is the goal, then this particular point won't matter much. But if you want to wait until, who knows when, in order to have a picture-perfect wedding day, surrounded by hundreds of people you know and love, you might want to alter those plans, just a bit.
In most states, you can still meet in small groups, so why not turn your big wedding into a smaller one? Not only will that help you to save a ton of money (because weddings, on average, run about $34,000), but it can give you the chance to prepare for something even bigger and better, once COVID-19 is finally a thing of the past.
Consider Live Streaming Your Nuptials
If there is a silver lining to this pandemic, it's definitely forcing us to get more innovative and creative. When it comes to throwing a wedding, some couples are opting to live stream their nuptials. While it's definitely not as awesome as having everyone's physical presence on your wedding day, this option makes it possible for many people to witness your nuptials without putting you or themselves at risk in the process. The main thing to remember with this particular choice is you need to make sure that you use a reliable platform like Freedocast, so that you're able to record a live high-definition broadcast while using multiple devices. Look at it this way—people who plan destination weddings oftentimes do this very thing. It's not "weird"; it's just different (and safer…and convenient). Anyway, if you'd like some tips on how to livestream your wedding, so that everything goes off without a hitch, click here.
Or Consider Having Drive-Thru Service
Back before COVID-19 literally took over the world, a lot of people found couples who went through wedding chapel drive-thrus to be cheesy (and that's putting it mildly). But now? It's actually becoming a very popular option. I'm not just referring to two people literally driving through a venue that will perform a ceremony like some people order a value meal. I mean holding an outdoor service in the parking lot of a place, so that family members and friends can witness your nuptials while practicing safe distancing in the process. I know a few people who have used the property of their church in order to do this. If you do it when the weather is nice and you've got a reliable sound system, it can be like they are watching a love story on film—only it's not a movie; it's actually your real life. And yes, there is something that's uniquely romantic about that thought.
If You’ve Already Sent Out Save-the-Dates, Send Out Change-the-Dates
If you and yours do mutually decide to postpone your wedding and save-the-dates (or even wedding invitations) have already gone out, there is nothing to feel embarrassed about. How could you have known that 2020 was gonna go all rogue like this? To keep your guests abreast of your change of plans, all you need to do is send out some change-the-dates cards. Etsy is just one of the many sites that feature a variety of different change-the-dates that come at an affordable price (click here to check some of them out). And what if you don't know the new date? Share that too. The people who love you will be waiting to celebrate your "I dos", whenever they happen. Believe that.
Don’t Knock Eloping
Who knows if I'll get married someday. But if I do, I'll tell you what, eloping is looking more and more like the way to go. Matter of fact, I'm so much of a fan of this approach that I wrote about it (check out "7 Solid Reasons To Strongly Consider Eloping"). Eloping saves money. Eloping makes the day be just about you and your partner. Eloping can help you to feel more financially secure about the future. I know many couples who said that they don't regret one thing about eloping because they had more money to make the day extra special and/or to create the kind of honeymoon that they wouldn't have been able to pull off any other way. So yeah, don't look at eloping as a concession. Choose instead to see it as a blessing in disguise. Because it very well could turn out to be just that.
Again, I know that most of us have specific dreams and desires for our wedding day.
Please don't allow COVID-19 to rob you of those. Whether you choose to postpone or simply modify your original plans, just remember that if there's one thing this pandemic can't do, it's affect (or infect) the love between you and your beloved and change the reasons why you chose to get married in the first place.
If you keep these points in the forefront of your mind, you can get through this. In fact, this mindset can actually prepare you for other marriage tests to come. Look at how the Universe works, y'all.
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As I quickly ran down my “Christmas list” of desires, as I came towards the end and then looked him in the eyes (because we were walking), he calmly and simply said, “I can be that.” Chile…CHILE. It took me close to a year of discovering so many cryptic things about him for me to realize that there is a really big difference between what someone “can be” vs. who they actually are — and that oversharing can set you up for dating a character more than a genuine individual. Lesson learned. Lesson freakin’ learned.
I can’t lie, though — when I recently read about a current dating trend known as “floodlighting,” from my own personal experience, that’s probably the closest that I’ve ever come to it. I think it’s because, since I’m so open with damn near everyone and also, since my past pattern has mostly consisted of taking friendships into something more (as opposed to dating people who I barely know), I’ve never really taken the classic floodlighting approach to try and connect with someone else.
I do have clients who have, though — and the trend is concerning enough that I definitely thought that it was worth writing about; mostly as a PSA to not floodlight and also to be cautious if you sense that someone is currently in the process of trying to floodlight you.
And just what do I mean when I say that? Read on, sis. Read on.
Floodlighting. According to Author Brené Brown.
GiphyBest-selling author, podcaster, and professor Brené Brown is a pretty popular person. Since quotes are my thing, that’s probably how I “connect” with her most because I like things that she has been credited for saying like “Maybe stories are just data with a soul,” “The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it” and “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.”
And since self-reflection is such a big part of her platform, it didn’t really surprise me when I found out that she is actually credited for coming up with the term “floodlighting.” It would seem that in her audiobook, The Power of Vulnerability: Teachings of Authenticity, Connections, and Courage, she stated this:
“Oversharing? Not vulnerability; I call it floodlighting. ... A lot of times we share too much information as a way to protect us from vulnerability, and here's why.
I'm scared to let you know that I just wrote this article and I'm under total fire for it and people are making fun of me and I'm feeling hurt — the same thing that I told someone in an intimate conversation. So what I do is I floodlight you with it — I don't know you very well or I'm in front of a big group, or it's a story that I haven't processed enough to be sharing with other people — and you immediately respond ‘hands up; push me away’ and I go, ‘See? No one cares about me. No one gives a s*** that I'm hurting. I knew it.'
It's how we protect ourselves from vulnerability. We just engage in a behavior that confirms our fear.”
If that was a bit challenging to follow, what Brené is basically saying is…well, you know how sometimes you will watch a post on social media by someone you don’t know, your first reaction is something like “Ugh. TMI.” and then you may actually say some form of that in their comment section? If others join in with your sentiment, the poster may follow up with a second video about that being why they don’t share their lives — it’s because people only take shots at them for doing so. Yeah, social media? Oh, there is PLENTY of floodlighting that goes on up in there, chile.
Okay, but what would be the strategy for floodlighting if it proves to be such a risky approach to connecting with other people? According to Brené, by sharing too much information about ourselves only to then receive some level of rejection for it — it’s kind of a “hurt you before you hurt me” kind of thing.
Meaning, “I’m not the best at cultivating intimacy and so, if I overshare and you pull back, I can make you be the ‘bad guy’ for rejecting me which makes all of this a test that you failed instead of my choosing to create an authentic connection and owning my part if things don’t end up working out.”
And yes, many people do this because, at the end of the day, they aren’t very comfortable with genuine intimacy. They also do it because they don’t really get that, when it comes to intimacy, another word should be the goal instead of vulnerability anyway.
I’ll explain.
It’s Important to Remember What Vulnerability Means
GiphyAsk pretty much any of my clients about what I think about the word “vulnerable” when it comes to marriage and they’ll tell you that I am not a fan. That’s because I lean into being pretty word-literal (as far as original definitions go) and I am aware that vulnerable means things like “capable of or susceptible to being attacked, damaged, or hurt,” “open to moral attack, criticism, temptation, etc.”
And y’all, for the life of me, I don’t know why anyone would choose to vow to spend their lives with an individual who they would need to be vulnerable with because, if your partner is susceptible to damaging you or they leave you open to attack or temptation — does that sound healthy to you? Yeah, me neither.
So, what word do I prefer then? Dependent. And what’s so wild to me is the fact that our culture is so used to the word “vulnerable” that many, even when it comes to their close connections, are far more uncomfortable with the word “dependent” — and boy, ain’t that a damn shame. Dependent is all that I want to be with my intimate dynamics because that’s all about “relying on someone or something else for aid, support, etc.” — and that is what you should do with your closest friends and definitely who you are in a romantic relationship with.
In fact, if the relationship is solid, it should be interdependent: “mutually dependent; depending on each other.” However, the thing to keep in mind with getting to the point where you can rely on someone is it takes time. While vulnerability, on some levels, can be rushed and semi-forced, dependency is an organic experience that occurs from life simply…happening.
Now keep all of this in mind as we explore how floodlighting reveals itself in a dating situation.
Floodlighting. When It Comes to Dating.
GiphyOnce I processed floodlighting, as far as dating is concerned, it actually made me think of people who have sex very quickly in the beginning of a relationship. I’m pretty sure that at least 70 percent of us know of someone who has raved about a person who they’ve only gone out on a couple of dates with. However, because they’ve already had sex with them and it was really good, suddenly, they believe that they’ve met the one.
Y’all, it truly can’t be said enough that “an oxytocin high” does not true intimacy make — oh, but because it feels amazing, it can have you out here thinking that something lasting and real has transpired when really, there hasn’t been enough moments shared or experiences had to know that for sure. However, since the sex was rushed, it can cause you to want to speed up the relationship too. It can tempt you to be like, “I mean, if we’re great in bed, surely we will be amazing in other rooms of the house too.” Floodlighting is a lot like this.
If you meet someone and you like the potential of what it could be, you might be tempted to want to, like Brené said in her book: OVERSHARE. It could be oversharing as it relates to some personal traumas that you’ve experienced. It could be oversharing as it relates to intimate details about your past relationships. It could be oversharing as it relates to your mistakes and flaws. It could be oversharing as it relates to your sex life. It could be oversharing as it relates to all of the expectations and demands (along with why) that you have.
The reason for doing this? It could be that you’re hoping the person will take it all in without any pushback which will cause you to believe that you both are immediately on the same page or it could be that you are attempting to fast-track the relationship by believing that if you share all of who you are during date one or two (or even four), they will do the same and — ding — an instant relationship.
See, more than anything else, floodlighting is a test. It’s a bit manipulative. It’s potentially stressful. And, more times than not, it ends up backfiring. And then, if it backfires, because it was a test, you can blame them for not rising up to the occasion.
Please tell me that you get how toxic this all is. For one thing, no one wants to be tested like this. Secondly, it’s unfair to expect someone to be “all in” with a person who they are just getting to know. Third, you have layers to you — all of us do — and it can be overwhelming for someone to be expected to learn, retain, and even accept all of the layers at once. Yeah, one thing that I like about the term floodlighting is it has the word “flood” in it. Water? We’re made up of mostly water, so of course, it’s good for us. Being flooded by water, though? That could harm or even destroy us.
In many ways, trying to force intimacy onto another person…it manifests in a similar way. Of course, you should share what makes you…you. A bit at a time, though, while letting time do its thing. Too much too soon is…exactly that.
How to Cultivate Healthy Intimacy in the Beginning Stages of a Relationship
GiphySo, what are some things that you can do to avoid being a floodlighter?
See your intel as privileged information.
Everything about you is special and special things should be earned. That said, as you get to know someone, OVER TIME, you’ll be able to see if they can be trusted with your thoughts, feelings and ultimately your heart — and no, that can’t happen on the first couple of dates. Y’all, it really can’t be said enough that instant chemistry doesn’t mean that intimacy should be expected to happen overnight.
In other words, just because you see the potential for something awesome with another person, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wait to see if the individual’s words and actions, consistently so, can complement the elation that you feel. Share a little. See how they respond. At another time, share a little bit more. See how they react. Rinse and repeat. Patiently and intentionally so.
Stop trying to pull stuff out of people.
There are all kinds of ways to be manipulating and controlling — and deciding that someone should move at your pace in a relationship is a way to be both things. In other words, not everyone is emotionally unavailable or immature simply because they don’t want to share every childhood experience or their relationship stories with you by date three.
No doubt, a lot of people self-sabotage something that could’ve been good because they were rushing someone to move outside of their comfort zone — knowing damn well that they would’ve had a problem with that if the shoe was on the other foot. Chill…what someone wants to tell you, they will. If they don’t? All you can — and should — do is decide if you want to move forward or not. That doesn’t require force on your part to come to that conclusion.
Nervousness is one thing. Being fearful is something else.
If the reason why you’re floodlighting is because you’re scared that people will not accept you or that they will abandon you, it really is best to put dating aside for a season and get into some therapy. Because, while being nervous about a potentially new relationship is completely understandable, being afraid of organic intimacy and then doing things that can hinder or prevent it is something completely different.
Put the tests away.
Listen, if you recall the tests that you took back in school, I have no clue why you’d want to put others through tests now that you’re a big-time adult. Tests are stressful, pressuring and sometimes, no matter how smart you are, you’re not going to perform well on them because you’re simply not a good test-taker (some of y’all will catch that later). There’s no need to “test” someone to see if they can take all of who you are. Again, time will reveal that on its own.
___
Personally, I think that floodlighting is so common that folks don’t even realize that they’re doing it or how problematic it actually is. Hopefully, this helps to shed some light.
Vulnerability tests? Uh-uh.
Seeing if someone can be depended on to care for you as you are? Relax. Time. Will. Reveal.
Now go on your date(s) and have fun. Damn. #winkLet’s make things inbox official! Sign up for the xoNecole newsletter for love, wellness, career, and exclusive content delivered straight to your inbox.
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