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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Keri McLendon is walked down the aisle by her father, Terry McLendon, as she weds Charles Hyde at the Kirkman Preserve clubhouse on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Keri McLendon and Charles Hyde kiss as McLendon’s uncle, Tommy McLendon, declares them husband and wife, during a ceremony held at the clubhouse at Kirkman Preserve on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Keri McLendon is walked down the aisle by her father, Terry McLendon, as she weds Charles Hyde at the Kirkman Preserve clubhouse on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Keri McLendon is walked down the aisle by her father, Terry McLendon, as she weds Charles Hyde at the Kirkman Preserve clubhouse on Saturday, April 4, 2020, officiated by Tommy McLendon, uncle of the bride. Photo by Erin Nelson.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Newlyweds, Keri and Charles Hyde, make their way through the neighborhood in a 1951 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith as members of the Kirkman Preserve community decorated sidewalks, mailboxes and stood in their front yards to celebrate the couple, while practicing social distancing guidelines from the CDC, on their wedding day on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Newlyweds, Keri and Charles Hyde, make their way through the neighborhood in a 1951 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith as members of the Kirkman Preserve community decorated sidewalks, mailboxes and stood in their front yards to celebrate the couple, while practicing social distancing guidelines from the CDC, on their wedding day on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
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Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Newlyweds, Keri and Charles Hyde, make their way through the neighborhood in a 1951 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith as members of the Kirkman Preserve community decorated sidewalks, mailboxes and stood in their front yards to celebrate the couple, while practicing social distancing guidelines from the CDC, on their wedding day on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
Keri McLendon had been busy planning a wedding ever since she got engaged in July of last year.
The Hoover resident and her fiancé thought they had the perfect venue picked out — a large barn surrounded by pear trees by a lake at the Red Gates at Kelly Creek event facility in Odenville.
“It’s really pretty,” McLendon said. “I’ve always loved that kind of rustic style.”
But when the seriousness of the COVID-19 outbreak became apparent, McLendon and her fiancé, Charles Hyde, made the difficult decision to call off the big wedding she had dreamed about and plan a much smaller ceremony for their nuptials.
This was slightly before the state health officer in mid-March issued an order limiting the size of gatherings in counties surrounding Jefferson County to 25 people or less, an order that since has been reduced to 10 people or less.
McLendon, a nurse practitioner at UAB’s O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center, already had a sense of how serious the situation was becoming due to meetings and planning that had begun at the hospital.
She knew they could no longer proceed with a wedding for which about 175 people had sent RSVPs. Not only would it be risky for all the guests, but her patients have compromised immune systems, and she can’t risk contracting COVID-19 because of them, she said.
So they canceled the big wedding and instead today held a small and less than 10-minute ceremony with nine people at their neighborhood clubhouse in the Kirkman Preserve community off Caldwell Mill Road in north Shelby County.
Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Keri McLendon is walked down the aisle by her father, Terry McLendon, as she weds Charles Hyde at the Kirkman Preserve clubhouse on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
It was just them, her uncle (who performed the ceremony), her parents, a photographer, the matron of honor, a friend who broadcast the wedding on Facebook Live and the president of their neighborhood association (who also shared the ceremony on Facebook Live for the neighborhood).
Hyde’s mother couldn’t make it from Mississippi, and his father and stepmother were stuck in Ecuador, where they live, with airports closed due to shelter-in-place orders. And everyone else just couldn’t come anymore.
“It’s just been really heartbreaking we couldn’t invite some of our closest family members and friends,” McLendon said.
The bride and groom considered postponing the wedding until things get back to normal and large crowds are no longer considered dangerous, but they decided to proceed with the April 4 wedding date.
“We’re just ready to be together and be married,” Hyde said.
At least those who wanted to come had an opportunity to watch the wedding on Facebook Live, McLendon said.
Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Keri McLendon and Charles Hyde kiss as McLendon’s uncle, Tommy McLendon, declares them husband and wife, during a ceremony held at the clubhouse at Kirkman Preserve on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
The past few weeks have been really crazy as they scrambled to scale back the arrangements, McLendon said.
They already had paid the event venue, and officials at the Red Gates at Kelly Creek refused to allow them to cancel the wedding and get an immediate refund due to the contract they had.
Venue owner Desa Osborn said the couple still could have had a smaller wedding at Red Gates and postponed the reception, or postponed both the wedding and reception. McLendon said the only option she was given was to postpone both.
McLendon and Hyde chose to hold the wedding elsewhere and officially reschedule until May 2021, and if someone else wants to book and pay for that date, the venue will refund McLendon and Hyde half the venue cost, Osborn said.
For now, McLendon said she and her new husband are “probably out about $10,000,” with about half of that tied to the venue.
Their caterer, despite being out of business himself, refunded everything but their deposit and agreed to hold off on making the large cake until McLendon and Hyde can have a party with more people at a later date. Their photographer insisted on being at the smaller ceremony to document the occasion, even though she was told she didn’t have to come, McLendon said.
The couple also had to delay their honeymoon to a Sandals resort in the Caribbean until mid-May because the resort has closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
When neighbors of McLendon and Hyde found out the couple was having to scale back their dream wedding, they went into action and organized a surprise grand sendoff for the couple once the ceremony was over.
Most neighbors in the 163-home community put out white balloons, ribbons, bows, signs and other decorations as a sign of solidarity and gathered at the ends of their driveways to cheer and blow bubbles for them as they drove away in a 1951 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith.
Photo by Erin Nelson Starnes Media
Coronavirus Wedding
Newlyweds, Keri and Charles Hyde, make their way through the neighborhood in a 1951 Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith as members of the Kirkman Preserve community decorated sidewalks, mailboxes and stood in their front yards to celebrate the couple, while practicing social distancing guidelines from the CDC, on their wedding day on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Photo by Erin Nelson.
That allowed them to practice social distancing while at the same time showing support, said Wayne Fixler, president of the Kirkman Preserve Homeowners Association.
“I just felt like it would be a great opportunity for the community to do something and also somehow help them out,” Fixler said. “I think of this neighborhood as a family. We all try to look out for each other.”
McLendon and Hyde said they may not have gotten the exact wedding they wanted, but they finally get to be officially married and will definitely have something special to remember.
“It’s really something we’ll look back on forever,” McLendon said.
Erin Nelson contributed to this article.
This article was updated at 4:40 p.m. on April 7 to clarify the business arrangement between McLendon, Hyde and Red Gates at Kelly Creek.
