**SPECIAL POST ALERT!**
In honor of our original wedding weekend date, we have a special guest writer contributing to the blog - my husband, Craig Ng! We each wrote our wedding day story separate of reading each others. Hope you all enjoy! :)
Written By: Craig Ng
I’m not a chill person. I like to think that I’m laid back, but I don’t roll with the punches well. I struggle to adapt to changes and setbacks. To call what’s happening in the world right now a “setback” wouldn’t do it justice or give proper respect to the situation, so I won’t.
I was so excited for our wedding. I still am. I can’t wait to drink with friends, hug my family and most importantly, dance with my wife. It took awhile for the fact that we were going to have to postpone our wedding to sink in for me. I think Jen understood the gravity of that sooner than I did - she’s always been much more aware of and in tune with her feelings, so it’s not surprising. In spite of the sadness and disappointment, it was actually an easy decision (at least for me) once I understood the situation. First and foremost, we wanted to keep our friends and family safe. Full stop. A distant, but still very important, second was that we knew we weren’t going to have the type of party we wanted. If you know me at all, you know that physical touch is important to me (the friendly kind, not the weird/creepy kind obviously). I don’t want to stand 6 feet away from anyone. I want to be able to shake hands and give hugs. Any party where physical proximity is limited isn’t a party I want to go to, let alone throw. I’d rather wait for what I want then have a party I know I wouldn’t enjoy.
So all this talk about a party and a wedding… but what about marriage? What was the point of all that again? Oh yeah… marriage. To say that practical considerations didn’t play into our decision to get married would be a lie. Living together, health insurance, etc. All important. Ultimately, though, we wanted to make this commitment to each other and to God despite the circumstances. Though we wouldn’t be able to have the wedding we wanted at the time we planned, we didn’t want that to stop us from entering into this covenant together.
We almost got married by a rando. We were thinking, for practical purposes, that we’d have a judge in Alameda County marry us. Thankfully, Jen called Bobby right before we sent our postponement communication and we eventually settled on doing a virtual ceremony with our immediate families and wedding party. Probably seems like the most Millennial thing ever, huh? Something something hiding behind a screen. Jen went into much greater detail about the day of, but for me, it was incredibly special. David, Becky and Arthur came as witnesses, event staff, photographers, live musicians, and caterers. Our families and our wedding party attended. We didn’t have to worry about finding a dog sitter for Coti. To say that we felt loved and supported would be an understatement. I wouldn’t say I had low expectations, but it was greater than I could have imagined. Plus we can say that Rintaro catered our wedding!
I still can’t wait to have our party. I still can’t wait to celebrate with all of our friends and family. That said, I’m so grateful for how God planned this moment. I hope the story of our little wedding would be an encouragement that there is beauty and hope in the world. It never left.
More photos below from our wonderful photographers and powerful couple duo: David and Becky Luoh. #iphoneonly
