Chicago Couple Cancels Wedding Reception, Feeds 200 For Thanksgiving Instead

If you planned on having a wedding anytime this year, you've probably been through a lot of emotions by now. An acquaintance of mine has had to cancel her wedding not once, but twice. I can't even imagine how frustrating that is.

But you might as well make lemonade out of a whole trillion bushels of lemons, like this Chicago couple did. After having to cancel a wedding of 150 guests including people from all over the country, the Chicago Sun-Times reports, Emily Bugg and Billy Lewis opted for a decidedly smaller courthouse wedding in front of a courthouse judge. But what do you do when you've already sunk $5,000 into a deposit for catering?

Bugg works for Thresholds, a nonprofit outreach service that assists people dealing with serious mental illnesses. Thresholds typically hosts a Thanksgiving celebration, but due to the pandemic, it had to cancel this year. So the couple persuaded their caterer to use their deposit to pay for 200 Thanksgiving meals to distribute to people who'd otherwise have attended. On the menu was turkey, green beans, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce, a good spread to celebrate the holiday.

Bugg and her coworkers delivered the meals to the West Side of Chicago in person. "Even while we were disappointed, we realized we still have so much. Canceling a wedding compared to what other people were going through wasn't as big a deal," she said. And next year, hopefully, they'll be able to celebrate their wedding in person.