Our team has always traveled around the areas we serve beautifying our brides and their bridal parties, but sometimes we get lucky enough to go outside of our service areas and experience what dreams are truly made of. Normally this wedding would have a place in my heart, but now looking back on how our lives have changed in the past year it has an incredibly special place in my heart.
Okay. Ready? Story time!
Alysia was my long time nanny. She slowly became one of the most valuable people to me, because she maintained my household and took care of my kids which let me have the time to open and develop what you all now know as Captivate Beauty. Alysia worked for my family for years while she went to college. During that time she started dating this handsome guy. They ended up moving to Alysia's home state and after 7 years Marty finally proposed. IMO it's adorable that young love turned into long term / true love relationship.
As I followed along on her planning process through instagram she told me they set a date and were doing a destination wedding in Jamaica. I said, "Okay. I will be there". She couldn't really believe I said that. However, I always told her one day when she gets married I would be there to help with her hair and makeup. So I was going and to me it didn't matter where the wedding was. I love sneaking away for long weekends with my hubby and adventuring. Jamaica in January sounded amazing.
The wedding day was so intimate. Marty and Alysia were surrounded with family and close friends. Montego Bay has the most picturesque views, water that is aqua and the people are so kind. Everything about the moment was special.
Let's slow down for a sec and just acknowledge that these two are what #couplegoals are made of.
Alright. Here is where this story gets deep and personal for me!
When I was there I distinctly remember a moment when my husband David and I were laying on the beach, chatting and eating some delicious jamaican jerk chicken. David was telling me about this new virus in China. He showed me a video of people in hazmat suits walking around and spraying the city with disinfectant. It looked like something out of a Sci-Fi movie. This was the first moment I heard about Coronavirus. I didn't think that conversation would be one that was marked in the history books.
Thinking back to Marty and Alysia's wedding day... They are blessed. They are fortunate and they are very lucky they got to make that memory. A memory that will last a lifetime.
Little did we know that 6 short weeks later coronavirus would hit the US and our lives would be changed very quickly. The freedom that we had to go is now gone. Destination weddings out of our country have become rare. Close friends have postponed from 2020 to 2021 thinking restrictions would be lifted. Today that is still up in the air. The time on the beach was a moment I enjoyed, but today I will always cherish.
What this pandemic has done to service based small business is incredibly sad. We still have weekly cancellations. The areas we serve are destination locations. One bride called last week. She postponed from May 2020 to May 2021 and now canceled completely. She cannot move forward to have her 170 person destination wedding in Colorado because of the size restrictions. I believe her exact words were, "This has not been a fun process and we want to move forward with our lives and forgo the wedding nightmare!".
That statement made me think of the media and how we seem to have excitement for a vaccine (yes high risk and frontliners are getting it, but not the general population) and are forgetting that day to day we are still being impacted with little support of losses. I don't type this as a sob story. It is a realization that this is not over and the place we were 1 year ago is now something I hope everyday that we get back to. People do not see the conversations, the salon and wedding business trends. We are the data of what is happening. As 2020 can to an end Captivate Beauty was down 57%. This is all due to the pandemic. This number was all cancellations and postponements. While we were aware of what was happening financially, it also gave time to dig deeper than ever. We have positioned Captivate to catapult to new levels once this passes. Our team hopes and prays that this pandemic will end soon. We want to get back to making money, we want to go to work without fear of getting sick and we want to enjoy our freedom again. We want to travel to places like Jamaica for weddings again.
Alysia and Marty magically picked a perfect time to get married in paradise.
From my family and the Captivate Beauty team we wish you both a very happy anniversary. Thank you for sharing such a sentimental moment!
:) Aleigha