covid safe wedding

Precautious*

Hi Nicola! We had both ceremony and reception outdoors and had a PPE station so to speak right as guests entered the ceremony with masks and Hand sanitizers. We also had colored wristbands for anyone who is a strict social distancing person (they were peach colored to match our wedding color). We eliminated the receiving line. We had bridal party be announced individually into the reception (no touching with partners). We had significant dances and added a few extra to keep guests from crowding the dance floor. Plated dinner and cookie table cookies were individually wrapped. To prevent crowding, I tossed my bouquet to just my siblings. Our venue had plexiglass for the bartenders and no open bar (preselected drinks) to keep from crowding and long lines. All beer and water were bottled to minimize open containers. Even though we had a lot of precautions, we had a blast!! It was truly magical 🌸

I have extremely high risk siblings (one lives on a ventilator) who my dad is a primary caregiver for so we decided to change initial plans and just have a ceremony with our immediate family and a live stream for everyone else. We also moved the ceremony outdoors into the garden section of our venue. We're also providing masks and hand sanitizer for everyone there (around 10 people).

View Quoted Comment Thank you for this. I’m in the process of trying to figure out how will I make my wedding safe for all guests. Everyone keeps asking will they be able to dance, but I don’t feel that will be safe. I want to get married the COVID safe way.

View Quoted Comment You’re welcome!! To help keep the dance floor not crowded, we opted for more classic and non- dance music (Kenny G, Maxi Priest “Close to you”, Paula Abdul “Rush”, 40 Fingers “Disney Medley”). Guests actually loved the relaxed yet upbeat mood and enjoyed it not feeling like a dance club. ❤️

My best friend had masks available, sanitizing hand wipes at every table, also she had social distancing stickers - I wish people actually social distanced though! Her wedding was normal during covid :/ luckily no one got sick

We completely eliminated guests and will be eloping. Can't get any safer than that.

Fh and I cut the guest list to 46. Assigned household seating at ceremony and made sure it was distanced. This was easy to do since our venue already had been doing this so we got the idea of placing from them. Assigned household seating for the cocktail/reception. No dancing that will be replaced with fun interactive newlywed trivia. We came up with a way to make it like a game show to get everyone involved. For our smaller households 2-4, we arranged with our venue to utilize the low cocktail tables. Moved the wedding outdoors and will have a tent. Temp checks at the door by the venue. In NYC starting the second week of March testing will be mandatory for wedding guests so this helps a lot. Now we don’t have to be the ones trying to get everyone tested it’s now required if they want to come. We got some nice customized masks from Etsy for our guests and extra for vendors. We have mask holders so masks can be safely put away while eating. We ordered a bulk of sanitizers. We have individually wrapped sanitizing wipes coming hopefully today and will place those at the tables. There’s probably more I’m forgetting. We are deeply considering those comfort level bracelets. Because we do have a few huggers and I need to reign them in. And at the moment we are trying to work with our photographer for safe wedding photos. Fh and I decided on household photos. So households will be called and will take pictures. We have another idea regarding photoshopping but that’s in the works. But we also went ahead and used the WeddingWire covid safety email template and input our safety measures and this is what we will send to guests once invites have been mailed. Fh didn’t understand the need to tell everyone everything but I feel in these times transparency is so important. This way they can make a well informed decision of whether they’d like to attend given the safety precautions we are taking. A lot of my anxiety over going out is not knowing what to expect, who will be there, are they following protocol, so I think guests will really appreciate knowing exactly what to expect when they come to our wedding. They will know where they will sit, that we are implementing social distancing, masks wearing and a 2 week quarantine leading up to the date if feasible (like for those working from home still like me and fh). Sorry for the long message.

Temperature check, social distanced tables, hand sanitizers, servers to serve the food, using plastic instead of China etc

These are just a few things we're planning to do:

1. We will be limiting guests (we came to the realization that this is likely a reality/normalcy for now, and we're okay with it).

2. We also moved our venue from indoors to all outdoors (under a tent).

3. Will be requiring masks when social distancing isn't possible/people aren't actively eating, drinking, being photographed.

4. We'll have some fancy hand sanitizer pumps up at the bar and by our guestbook/gift tables.

5. We will be having a dance floor, but promoting lawn games as an alternative (bocce, giant jenga, corn hole...)

6. Keeping tables to 6, and will be assigning actual seats to keep people in their "pods/bubbles" during dinner.

7. We've also included an insert in our invites setting some expectations, making sure people RSVP with restrictions/risks in mind, encouraging them to get the vaccine if they are eligible and able to do so.

8. I also did not want to do favors, so "in place" of that, my mom is making washable/reusable cotton masks that guests can wear/take with them home. Will have them on a table with a sign "Party Masks." Going to have fun with it and stay positive and safe to the best of our ability!

Our wedding is early June, so things could change a bit by then, but we don't expect masks to go away or proper precautions to go away by then either.