Organising a wedding during the Covid-19 pandemic is not for the fainthearted as there has been a lot of uncertainty over the past one year and a half. Delays, postponements, limited number of people, tight restrictions, are just some of the things that have characterised weddings since March last year when the first case of the virus was recorded in Rwanda. Many who missed having their dream wedding in 2020 hoped that perhaps by the next wedding season in 2021, which normally runs from July to December, things would be better, but no. Not yet at least. As per the cabinet meeting resolutions of July 30, civil and religious weddings are still restricted to a maximum of 10 people and all have to present a negative Covid-19 test. Nadia Uwera Umurerwa had to postpone her wedding which was due in December 2020, as the country entered a second phase of restrictions that ran through the festive season, till the beginning of this year. “Our hope was that perhaps things would be better between January and March 2021 but they got even worse as tighter preventive measures were introduced. “Since my fiancé lives abroad, we had hoped that by summer (June-August 2021), the situation would have improved for him to travel again and we go through the ceremonies, but that won’t be possible either. We are now looking at December 2021,” Umurerwa says. It takes commitment for a couple to keep waiting with hope, but for many others, respecting the guidelines, which require one to have a wedding with barely any people, is the only option. Umurerwa says that having planned earlier to have their families around on their big day and doing something memorable is what held them back, even if they were not necessarily looking at a big wedding. When the situation eased a bit, allowing about 50 to 70 people, they thought of doing it but their work schedules and restricted travel could not allow them to. Under such circumstances, some couples have had to break up or simply move on and for others, the pandemic presented a window to escape commitment. Luckily, Umurerwa and her Canada-based high school sweetheart, are still holding on with hope and she believes that if it wasn’t for the fact that they are committed to each other, ‘love exhaustion’ would have gotten the best of them. A study done by the U.S-based National Center for Family and Marriage Research found that since 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has had a heavy toll on relationships, not just for people intending to get married, but also those already married as the number of divorces increased. Though 2021 has seen an improvement as people improvised with existing preventive measures, the situation is yet to fully go back to normal as Covid-19 continues to evolve and impact the way people relate. A parallel research published by Sage Journals at the end of 2020 confirmed that the Covid-19 pandemic and policies to curb the spread of the virus have profoundly affected society, particularly the institution of marriage. It found that fewer people are getting married in the pandemic period compared to the year before the outbreak in 2019. It further found that there was a declining number of people applying to get married. Worldwide, many couples continue to postpone marriages because of Covid-19-induced barriers to marriages, including inaccessible public services, limited number of people, closed churches and wedding venues and fear of breaking the law. Researchers observed that delayed or postponed marriages led to foregone unions and stress for many, hence affecting the social life of couples. However, in other cases, as they say, love conquers all, including a pandemic and the restrictions it comes with. Many couples took advantage of eased restrictions and went ahead to get married, sticking to the permitted number while others had to forego the church wedding, doing only civil. In other cases, couples who flouted the rules and invited a few more people found themselves spending a night in the stadium and as the Police Spokesperson, CP John Bosco Kabera, has always emphasised, Covid-19 does not enjoy attending weddings. The fear of making your big day a super spreader has forced many to wait a little longer with the hope that things will get better, but the question remains, how long will you wait?
