Preparing for the “I do” in pharmacy school
LIFE
Miranda Godfrey is a final-year PharmD candidate at the Shenandoah University Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy.
Pharmacy school is stressful. Wedding planning is stressful. Combine them, add in a global pandemic, and it sounds crazy, right? Many people have asked me how I manage to juggle work, pharmacy school, wedding planning, and this pandemic. I don’t have a great answer, because most of the time it is really difficult.
Planning comes to a halt
I’m marrying my fiancé, Jake, on January 1, 2022, in my hometown in West Virginia. Jake and I got engaged during Thanksgiving break 2019, in my second year of pharmacy school. It was really important to us to have a long engagement so that I could focus on school and we could save money, but I also didn’t want to wait too long to be married.
We decided that it would be best to have the wedding during one of my Christmas breaks and started planning right away for 2022.
What I didn’t plan for was the COVID-19 pandemic to break out less than 4 months after we got engaged. Suddenly we were all stuck at home, and wedding planning screeched to a halt. With the whole world on lockdown, I tried to prioritize my schooling and mental health above anything else.
After I managed to get through the spring semester of my second year and things started to slowly open up, my fiancé and I were able to start making plans again. I have tried to do all the big planning decisions, like picking out a dress and venue, during breaks from school so that I could focus all my attention on the wedding with minimal school stress. Planning these moments with school in mind allowed me to both focus on my schoolwork and the big day!
Big day is almost here
The best advice I could give to anyone planning to get married during their time at pharmacy school is to start early and make a clear plan.
I’m getting a lot of help from my family to make my wedding dreams a reality. It helps to have someone other than just yourself and your fiancé to act as a sounding board for your ideas, especially when you are stressed with school and don’t have time to answer a question from one of your vendors or make a small decision about your cake or flowers.
Getting married while you’re still in school may seem like a daunting task—I won’t sugar coat it, it hasn’t always been easy. But when January 1 arrives and I can say “I do” to the love of my life, I know it will all have been worth it.