9/11 Weddings: Couples Getting Married on September 11

The biggest fall wedding trend this year? Getting married on 9/11. Look, it’s not easy being a pandemic couple desperately trying to schedule (or reschedule) a wedding in between COVID-19 variants, and when 9/11 has the audacity to fall on a Saturday, sacrifices have to be made — sacrifices like inviting all your friends and loved ones to come together in celebration of your happy union on the 20th anniversary of the deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor.

But while 9/11 may not be an ideal wedding day and is possibly an even worse anniversary to be stuck with for the entirety of your marriage, desperate pandemic couples — many of whom have already had their nuptials delayed or rescheduled due to COVID — are not about to waste a perfectly good September weekend. According to the New York Times, the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks will be a hopping wedding day, with many happy couples refusing to shy away from the taboo date.

Still, the brave choice to share a wedding anniversary with a deadly terrorist attack doesn’t come without some backlash. “It’s uncomfortable every single time,” 9/11 bride-to-be Jazmin Castro told the Times of announcing her wedding date. “Some people won’t say anything directly to me about the date, but I can see it in their reaction when I tell them.” Other brides online reportedly suggested Castro attempt to mitigate the negative associations by referring to her wedding date as “the 11th of September” rather than “September 11th,” though I tend to think the obviously awkward phrasing would only draw more attention to the eyebrow-raising date.

However, despite direct warnings against getting married on 9/11 from none other than The Knot, many others online have shown support for couples planning on turning a national day of mourning into a personal celebration. “I think people are always looking for good memories to have on days that stand out as being anniversaries of more somber events, so I would not hesitate to have a wedding on this date unless you are aware of guests having lost a loved one during the 9/11 attacks,” one glass-half-full commenter replied to a WeddingWire query from a bride asking if a 9/11 wedding would be disrespectful.

“I don’t think it’s disrespectful at all,” another chimed in. “Life doesn’t stop just because something bad happened on that date years ago. If that were the case, nearly every day would be off-limits, because if you look back in history, bad things have happened on most days.”

Honestly, good point. Bad stuff does happen most days, especially lately. Moreover, our apocalyptic timeline does seem to be escalating pretty rapidly, so how much does any of this really matter anyway? If you think too hard about doing really anything at all these days given the current state of the world, it starts to seem pretty eerie and meaningless. So go ahead, have your little pandemic 9/11 apocalypse weddings with your Pinterest-inspired wedding favors and silly hashtags and pretend the world isn’t melting down around you for a few hours. You deserve it.