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2022-03-24
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2022-03-24
Welcome to the Wedding Boom. How Couples are Handling the Busiest Season in 40 Years
This is a news story about the rising amount of weddings happening in 2022 after some couples have had to put them off. This story by NPR details changing wedding trends along with it. Wedding dress retailers such as David's Bridal say the demand for maternity wedding dresses is at a 10% increase. Wedding site, The Knot, has had a 25% increase. Financial stress in planning these weddings has also increased. Mandy Connor, a wedding planner, notes that one of her clients was hit with a 30% increase in overall cost between the contracted estimate and the final bill. This article does a good job at showing changes in wedding trends based on how retailers are reacting. -
2022-03-24
High Functioning Autism during a Pandemic
For those that are somewhat familiar with autism, one might believe the pandemic was perfect for someone like me. People were encouraged not to speak to each other in person, everyone had to keep a distance, and masks were everywhere to conceal the face. These things, for me, were what I dreaded. I had a pretty good routine going before the pandemic. I had just graduated college with my bachelor degree and was getting used to being married. I was also caring for my grandma as one of my first jobs. I got to get up every morning, earn money, and make sure my husband was well cared for. My husband and I would go places for date nights and we would sometimes do spontaneous things like midnight grocery shopping for ice cream. Things were just carefree. Then a few months into our marriage, things changed a lot (more for me than for my husband). I enjoyed going to church in person for both my spiritual needs and for the social aspects it gave me. Once March 2020 happened, I couldn't go to church in person. Church was online and it became harder for me to get into it and actually concentrate. I then just stopped going altogether for a while because I wanted to have that human connection I was missing. Eventually, I was able to go to church again, but I had to wear a mask. I dealt with it even though I didn't like it. It was sad to see so many people's faces covered by cloth. It made it feel like I couldn't connect to people as well. My social skills aren't terrible if everyone wears a mask, but I'm more likely to miss certain cues or tell when someone is joking. I focus on the mouth a lot when people talk, so not getting to see mouths was bothersome. Other elements of my life changed, and autism made it worse for me in some ways. Due to my older habits of wanting to go places more often, the stay-at-home orders that occurred at the very beginning made me feel like a prisoner and that I couldn't choose things for myself as often. This increased my anxiety a lot, to a point of a mental breakdown. My husband was luckily very understanding of my issues, so I was eventually able to recover once I gave myself more work to occupy my time with. Of all the COVID rules I had to follow, social distancing was one of the easiest things for me, but only in a few ways. I was fine with talking in person from a distance, as I already do that naturally, but I was not okay with having to talk to people more often through online video like Zoom. Zoom feels so unnatural because seeing people through video is not the same as seeing them in person. I didn't have to do it very often, but I was greatly unhappy at the annual family Christmas celebration in 2020 was all on Zoom. It didn't feel as festive as I would have wished. Autism in general has made COVID much harder to deal with, and sometimes I think that if I didn't have it that I could have adjusted better to the abrupt changes COVID brought into my life. I did learn some things though. I learned that I need a set routine to get things done, and that if I have a problem, I shouldn't feel afraid to be more honest about it. With my husband having had to work from home due to COVID, both of us have had to work on better communication skills. I don't think everything I've learned from this experience has been bad, but it's also not something I want to go through again. -
2022-03-24
Attending a COVID Wedding
My sister got engaged in October of 2019. At the time, we believed everything would go smoothly. My sister and her then fiancé planned for a wedding on October 10, 2020. It was a good thing it was that far in advance, as some people I knew that were planning for weddings in March or April of 2020 had to either reschedule their weddings or have a much smaller one than anticipated. One element of the wedding that made it unique for me outside of it being during COVID was that I had to travel across the country to get there, as the wedding was in Ohio, and I live in Arizona. At least I wasn't a bridesmaid, so there were less things I needed to really worry about. One thing that did bother me a lot was the plane ride there. I am not a fan of masks, as they give me lots of sensory issues and make it harder for me to understand what people are saying. I had to wear a mask for over three hours in the airport traveling to and from there. It was very uncomfortable too, given that planes themselves don't typically give you enough room to really feel like you can stretch out or lay down. I absolutely dreaded the plane ride even more because of the masks, but luckily the airlines were not bothered if I wore a cloth mask that I felt like I could breathe easier in. At least that was one mercy I got from all of this. Getting to the airport itself in Michigan before having to use a rental car to drive to where the wedding was, it made me sad to see so many shops and restaurants in the airport that were closed. For how many were shut down, I thought it was the opposite of helping, as it made it so people would crowd in the few places that were open for business, in addition to keeping people out of work that could have really used the money. When I got to the rental home my family was staying at for the wedding, it started to feel a bit more normal again. People were talking with each other without masks and for a moment, it made me feel like I was human again. The wedding felt the same way. Masks and hand sanitizer were still abundant for those that wanted them, but overall, people were acting like it was before the virus even happened. I was happy that the cases were low enough in Ohio for my sister to have a (mostly) normal wedding given the circumstances. Others were not nearly as lucky. Overall, it was a great time seeing family I didn't get to see as often, in addition to enjoying lots of dancing and good food. Unlike my wedding that happened in 2019, my sister wasn't able to go to the honeymoon destination she wanted until nearly a year after the wedding happened. She was also busy in school, so she couldn't afford to take time off for that at the moment anyway. If you were to look at the picture I posted for the wedding of my sister, you would assume that it wasn't during COVID. I'm glad my sister and my brother-in-law didn't wear masks for the wedding pictures because it's more fun to see people's faces, especially for an event like that. I am mostly just grateful that despite less than optimal circumstances to have a wedding, my sister was able to have a celebration she could look back on fondly. -
2022-03-24
Covid-19 Cuts Senior Year Short
As a 2020 senior, I went on Spring Break and never came back to the high school that I thought I would enjoy for 2 more months. I cried at the fact that I wouldn’t get to experience my “lasts” of high school; no senior trip, no senior field day, no senior prank, and no graduation. I felt like my senior year had been ripped away from me in a matter of seconds, and I felt that I had worked hard in school for nothing. I questioned if I would ever get to go to college or travel again. Covid-19 turned my happy senior year into a nightmare. I remember feeling so discouraged and depressed; even my town’s streets were completely empty. It was a time of utter darkness that I never want to live through again. The unknown scares me, and Covid-19 sent my fear into full force.