Arctic Newfoundlanders improvise wedding, after pandemic changes their plans

Lance Chatman and Alicia Taylor had a plan.

The couple, who work as teachers in the Arctic hamlet of Kugaaruk, Nunavut, got engaged in 2018.

Having spent a summer inspecting venues in their home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and planning their dream wedding, invites were sent out, RSVPs were collected, and everything was falling into place for the big day.

"We had our hall booked, we had our ceremony booked … everything you need to have a wedding booked, it was booked," said Taylor.

So much for that. Taylor and Chatman were set to be married July 25, 2020 — a big family wedding smack dab in the middle of the summer of COVID-19.

As the pandemic unfolded, the couple watched, heartbroken, as the province slowly shut down. Eventually, on May 15, it banned all non-resident travel — "and that kind of made the decision for us," Taylor said.

As the weeks to their wedding date counted down, instead of finalizing decorations and reconnecting with old friends, they were calling family, one-by-one, to tell them there would be no wedding after all.

But Taylor and Chatman are not easily discouraged types.

"I didn't want COVID-19 to be the reason we had to stop everything and stop our life," said Chatman.

So one Friday morning in August, Taylor said, they woke up and decided — "We're going to get married today, let's do it."

One couple, three weddings

Improvising a wedding in Nunavut isn't easy, and in fact, Taylor and Chatman had been trying for weeks to figure out how to perform the ceremony in their new home of Kugaaruk.

First they thought a friend could do it, but Nunavut doesn't recognize certification outside the territory. Then they tried the RCMP, but they don't perform weddings.

That meant getting the local justice of the peace to certify the wedding, and luckily enough, he worked with them at the school. But a busy hunting season kept him out on the land, and Taylor and Chatman decided they were tired of waiting.

"It was a last-minute kind of decision," said Taylor.

Friends came together to decorate their backyard, act as photographer, and provide food for a reception. A coworker flew a wedding cake up all the way from Yellowknife, and in the end, their friend performed the unofficial ceremony.

From the nerves to the excitement, said Chatman, "it didn't feel any different. It definitely felt like a wedding."

The small ceremony saw just the best man and officiant hear the couple say the magic words in their backyard, perched on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

"There was a lot of boats going behind us, 'cause they were going whaling," said Chatman. "They saw us getting married, but they didn't know what was going on."

The reception, a bonfire, attracted kids from all over the community, who joined the small group of friends in celebrating the couple's new future together.

"It was a perfect night," said Taylor.

When they went to bed, they realized — it was two years to the day exactly from when they got engaged. So much for COVID-19 putting the brakes on their schedule.

Chatman and Taylor still plan to have a Newfoundland wedding for their southern family, and the marriage had to be certified by the justice of the peace — meaning they'll have been married three times when it's all over.

But Taylor said her takeaway from the experience was to "not take it too seriously."

"The days of COVID[-19] are very challenging … and you've just got to make the best of it," she said.

"You've gotta make yourselves happy."