Masks during the ceremony and reception

We postponed. Our original date was this April, and gathering of up to 150 are technically allowed in our state, but we decided we were willing to wait one more year so we could party like it's 2019.

Ultimately it is up to you, but, I personally would first assess whether you’d be able to postpone with all your vendors and what will be involved in doing so. We postponed because we weren’t allowed to dance but thankfully all our vendors were understanding and we weren’t charged a cent for doing so.

Hey bride, sorry you have to deal with this stress. How long would you be willing to push your wedding out for? The masks were only supposed to be until we flattened the curve, and then it was until we find a vaccine, and now it’s until everyone is vaccinated, and now we’re going to have to continue wearing them even though people are vaccinated because they can still spread. My state is requiring everyone to have a negative test upon entry including the servers and vendors, yet everyone is still required to wear masks. Including people who’ve already been vaccinated. If your only reason to postpone is because you don’t want masks, then what happens if you wait another year and you still have to wear masks? I agree that I do not want a bunch of masks in my photos or videos, But I just don’t really see an end in sight to any of this. Would you continue to postpone until there are no masks?

If you are against following the current health protocols (masks, social distancing, capacity restrictions) then it would be safer to postpone.
I do want to say that we had our wedding with masks and it was still awesome! Husband and I still got our pictures together without masks. I was worried my makeup would come off with the mask but it didn’t. All I had to do was reapply my lipstick but I would have had to do that anyways after eating food.
Good luck with your decision!

I completely understand. We felt the same way, and ultimately decided to postpone until 2022. And we’ve had zero regrets! It’s actually been such a stress reliever not having to worry about what restrictions will look like when our wedding rolls around, if we will be able to have dancing, if we will waste lots of money on photography and videography because everyone will be in masks, etc.

It’s definitely a personal choice given other factors in the decision to postpone (life timeline, money, family, etc). Nobody can tell you what to want. I will say though, I went to a wedding where everyone wore masks and everyone had a great time. You could see how much fun everyone was having through the photos despite the masks.

So many brides postponed a year out exactly from this time last year thinking surely this would all be over by now only to find themselves in the same exact situation. I know our venue did not require wedding party to wear masks and the photographer was very strategic in taking pictures with guests at the tables without their masks. It didn't hinder or dampen the mood in any way. People were out on the dance floor social distancing either way and having a good time.

If you don’t want any masks in your photos and those are the current mandates, I recommend rescheduling.

This was a dealbreaker for me too. Do you think your state will get to a point where they don't require them anymore?

This has been mine and my FH's mindset for the entirety of wedding planning. If for whatever reason, we aren't able to have a normal wedding in September, we will cancel the entire thing and go to the courthouse -- maybe have a private reception at afterwards. The last thing we want to do is pay thousands of dollars for a party, and thousands more for a photographer to capture pictures that you can't see our loved ones faces in. I totally get it!

I would keep up with your local and state guidelines and play it by ear!

I would think long and hard about rescheduling because we don't know when we're going to be back to normal. Everyone who postponed this time last year thought we would be normal right now and we're not. While I completely understands masks aren't the ideal, we really don't know if things will get back to normal any time soon. I'm in charge of handling COVID response for my company, so I keep up with numbers and regulations and science etc, we're supposed to have another wave soon. For me, no dancing is the hardline I'll be taking for my wedding.

Rescheduling makes sense. but i will say that i don't think mask wearing will entirely go away.

i feel like even next year if i was around a lot of crowds, i'd still wanna wear a mask

Depending on the state and it's rules, try to find a venue/church that will allow what you want. and stay away from major cities.. the suburbs for me are more relaxed than the city. for example Philadelphia PA has insane rules. and still require masks and certain number of people..... I live in the suburbs.... the churches around my area are at 50% capacity (150 people) and we found one big enough to work with our 130 INVITED guests, and we have had 11 declines so far, so I know I will be fine, - no dancing, no alcohol, which we didn't want anyways. so do your research if you want certain things for a wedding... if you want dancing and such then i would wait.

I agree with you. Check with your vendors and see if there will be any fees or if your new date is even open.

This is something my FH and I have talked about a lot. If masks must be worn the whole time we are just going to elope and save money.

I completely get you! I postponed the second time for the same reason. I wanted to be able to hug my guests dance have fun with out the mask. Luckily Az lifted most restrictions the week before my wedding and we didn’t have to wear masks. I think by summer things will be a little better. If you are not wanting the masks the I would postpone. Eventually masks will be a thing in the past.

View Quoted Comment All good points. Who knows what the future will bring. We decided to continue with our plans for this year and make the best of it! Thank you. ☺️

I got married paid a lot for the makeup/hair and my ceremony and venue are split. So when it comes time for my party it’s back with the money to pay for both and yup the mask took of a bit but honestly it still looked good couldn’t even tell. Pictures showed masks and it was discouraging. Not worth to move venue again.


There’s this like plastic piece you can hook on your mask and it will move it away a bit.
Like I said when I took off the mask it still looked good.
Hopefully next year will be better, but who knows. If you want to wait then go ahead. Just make sure any vendors / venue that you wanted make sure they good on moving (if you picked any yet)

My wedding is only 25 people now (from our initial guest list of 200 and postponed to this August) and over half of my guests, my fiance and I are fully vaccinated so we won't be wearing masks since the CDC does say we are free to socialize and have events without masks if we are all vaccinated. I postponed it for that very reason of not wasting thousands of dollars on amazing quality photographs to have them ruined by masks. When I look at my photos years from now I don't want to even remember covid 19 existed let alone have any trace of it photographed.