In the video, Mona, an autistic person who uses she/they pronouns, shares elements that she and her partner, Aaron, who has ADHD, incorporated to ensure that the day was a comfortable and enjoyable experience. This included measures like holding the wedding in a familiar and quiet location, getting ready at home with room included for breaks, wearing earplugs, and holding an outdoor picnic afterward to diffuse extra noise. Once outside, Mona also explained that she sat at the end of the table to avoid excessive eye contact.
These elements really resonated with viewers, as Mona's video currently has over 15.9M views, 2.9M likes, and 10.6K comments.
I spoke with Mona, who said that planning a sensory-friendly wedding wasn't necessarily unique for her. "Generally living as an autistic person, everything that I end up doing has to be thought of in that same way" she explained, before describing how she used her previous experiences at others' weddings as a blueprint in planning her own, "I think every wedding I’ve been to, I’ve either had a meltdown or something has always gone wrong. One of the most important things that we did was at the beginning, we sat down and discussed the weddings that we’d been to, what I found hard, and how we could avoid that in our own wedding. We took it very seriously to make sure that it was a nice day, and it wasn’t something that I was terrified of."
They also explained some of their reasoning behind the sensory-friendly additions at their wedding, like using earplugs to help filter background and foreground noises. This allowed Mona to focus on conversations rather than external distractions. Including breaks throughout the wedding also helped prevent Mona from becoming overwhelmed. They added, "Our photographer was aware, so she took me away for quiet breaks if she saw that I was becoming a bit frazzled."
Other elements that Mona and Aaron's wedding incorporated but weren't shown in the video include a buffet-style meal and games to play in the garden. The buffet-style meal ensured that Mona had options in case they were having a difficult day and preferred to eat familiar or simple things. Games, like Jenga and ring toss, encouraged "parallel play," to enable socialization. "I find socializing harder, and completing an action together makes it less stressful. You could play and focus and talk while you’re with someone, which I found very helpful," Mona described.
As for their guest list, Mona and Aaron chose to limit their wedding to family. Although some friends were initially confused, they quickly understood and became supportive once the couple explained their reasoning. Mona said, "I think that people really have strong ideas about what a wedding should be, and because I didn’t go in line with those rules, people were a bit confused at the beginning." Regardless, her guests were supportive, with some even mentioning that they preferred the ceremony to a traditional wedding.
