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Mostly cloudy in the morning with scattered thunderstorms developing later in the day. Gusty winds and small hail are possible. High 84F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Variable clouds with scattered thunderstorms. Storms may contain strong gusty winds. Low 64F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Emily VonBrockdorff and Tim Jagielo walk down their “aisle” in Jagielo’s yard as family tosses dried flower petals Friday, April 17 after their wedding ceremony. The wedding planned at a church on May 16 with 180 guests had been reduced to a quick service with immediate family due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Tim Jagielo’s mother and Emily VonBrockdorff’s sister live out of state and had to watch the wedding via a video call. A groomsman also watched on the call. Here, the newlyweds put on masks to stand closer to family for a photo. 

Tim Jagielo and Emily VonBrockdorff chat with family and friends watching via video calls. The couple has to wait until the county starts issuing licenses for a state-recognized wedding. 

Emily VonBrockdorff hugs her father Erik, and mother Lata, as she walks down the aisle of Jagielo’s front lawn Friday, April 17. 

Emily VonBrockdorff and Tim Jagielo don masks made by her mother to make a group photo with family a little safer.

Stephanie Burden of Fenton was forced to postpone her May wedding with fiance Stephan Hayward to October.

Charlotte Cox and her fiancé Jesse Payne have postponed their wedding due to the coronavirus. Submitted photos

Family and friends of Emily VonBrockdorff and Tim Jagielo watch their wedding via WhatsApp.

Emily VonBrockdorff and Tim Jagielo walk down their “aisle” in Jagielo’s yard as family tosses dried flower petals Friday, April 17 after their wedding ceremony. The wedding planned at a church on May 16 with 180 guests had been reduced to a quick service with immediate family due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Tim Jagielo’s mother and Emily VonBrockdorff’s sister live out of state and had to watch the wedding via a video call. A groomsman also watched on the call. Here, the newlyweds put on masks to stand closer to family for a photo. 

Tim Jagielo and Emily VonBrockdorff chat with family and friends watching via video calls. The couple has to wait until the county starts issuing licenses for a state-recognized wedding. 

Emily VonBrockdorff hugs her father Erik, and mother Lata, as she walks down the aisle of Jagielo’s front lawn Friday, April 17. 

Emily VonBrockdorff and Tim Jagielo don masks made by her mother to make a group photo with family a little safer.

Stephanie Burden of Fenton was forced to postpone her May wedding with fiance Stephan Hayward to October.

Charlotte Cox and her fiancé Jesse Payne have postponed their wedding due to the coronavirus. Submitted photos

Family and friends of Emily VonBrockdorff and Tim Jagielo watch their wedding via WhatsApp.

 In any given year, approximately 2.3 million couples wed in the United States. That works out to 6,200 weddings a day, according to weddingdaysparklers.com.

 But 2020 is turning out to be unlike any given year.

 Brides who had spent months or even years planning their perfect wedding were abruptly stopped in their tracks due to the COVID-19 virus.

 A few area couples shared their experiences of planning a wedding when the pandemic struck.

 Times Media Editor Tim Jagielo and his fiancée Emily VonBrockdorff were looking forward to their May 16 wedding. They met in February 2016 when Jagielo was covering a Fenton Community Orchestra concert. VonBrockdorff, a violinist, was waiting for the the concert to begin and a flash from Jagielo’s camera blinded her for a second. A friendship was born.

 Jagielo proposed June 22, 2019 to VonBrockdorff in Rackham Park on “their” bench near where they first met. 

 Their wedding at a church in Flint and a simple afternoon reception for 180 guests would then get them ready for their honeymoon in Hocking Hills, Ohio.

 This is when the coronavirus took over the world. When they decided to cancel, all of their vendors were cooperative.

 Jagielo and VonBrockdorff ended up with a cautious, immediate family only wedding at Jagielo’s home April 17. VonBrockdorff’s mother, Lata VonBrockdorff, made facemasks so the wedding party could stand closer for photos.

 “The most important thing was to be together,” Jagielo said. “We do miss our families and friends that we want to be excited newlyweds with, but we feel like everything was more special and meaningful the way it had to happen.

 “Also, we can’t technically get our marriage license until the county starts issuing them again.”

 Stephanie Burden, 31, of Fenton, was in the midst of planning her wedding to fiancé Stephen Hayward, 44, of Davison. She’s raising her 9-year-old daughter just one-and-a-half miles from her childhood home, “which has been very special.”

 The two met in December 2018 through one of Hayward’s co-workers who happens to be her daughter’s father. “We started dating in December and put a deposit down on our venue in February 2019,” she said.

 They chose a golf club in Clarkston that they fell in love with for their venue. Their wedding date was scheduled for May 30.

 “May is a rough month for me,” she said. “My late father’s birthday, parents’ anniversary and the anniversary of his passing are all in the month of May. I was thinking I could turn the month around by closing it out with the celebration of our marriage.”

 Burden said they had planned just about everything for their big day. Vendors were lined up, clothing was purchased and invitations had been sent.

 Then the COVID-19 pandemic happened. They initially thought they’d let the CDC guidelines decide their fate, but then the pressure got to Burden.

 At the beginning of April, with no end to COVID-19 in sight, their venue reached out to tell them they were willing to let the couple reschedule, free of cost. “At this point, we made the difficult, but stress-relieving decision to reschedule,” she said.

 They began contacting understanding family and friends and they reached out to the other vendors, who were willing, except for one, to work with them on a new October date. They are hoping they pushed the date out far enough and are not ruling out reducing the number of invited guests.

 Charlotte Cox of Grand Blanc and her fiancé, Jesse Payne of the Lapeer area, are rescheduling, as well. They made the decision to postpone their wedding until July due to the “stay home” order. She added that her mom is a lung cancer survivor and her dad has early Alzheimer’s/dementia. Both are high risk of the virus.

 “We had our first of two miscarriages, followed by our house fire in May 2019,” Cox said. “We selected May 16, 2020 for our wedding date so we could celebrate our rainbow babies (what would have been the first birthday). Corona changed that.

 “I work for Beaumont and just got laid off today. One day we will all get back to normal but have to be thankful for what we do have.”

One popular wedding venue in the Fenton area is Fenton Winery and Brewery in Fenton Township, owned by Matt and Ginny Sherrow.

Ginny Sherrow said this week, “We have been very busy working with our brides and grooms to reschedule them to new dates.” She added that so far, the 20 weddings they had scheduled between March 16 and May, half have moved to either later in 2020 or 2021.

“As weekends become unavailable in 2020, we are having some brides and grooms opt for a Thursday wedding or a micro wedding if they want to stick with 2020,” she said. “We have new micro wedding packages for spring dates that have opened up due to brides and grooms preferring to keep their parties large and move to 2021.”

The Sherrows’ goal is to provide the utmost flexibility for their brides and grooms and allow them to lead the way as far as reschedules. For those outside the mandates, it’s been completely up to their comfort and preference when and if they change their date.

“The same flexibility has been provided to our smaller event bookings, unrelated to the banquet hall,” she said. The 25-40 person parties, however, have mostly had to cancel due to time sensitivities; baby showers, birthdays, rehearsal dinners, etc. “So far we’ve lost nine of the 14 we had booked during the now six weeks of executive orders,” she said.

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