ny Brides | Covid Wedding Guest Update from Cuomo

View Quoted Comment I don’t think it’s even a dance floor, sounds like each person has their own 36 inches at their table and you can’t “enter” other peoples zones. This is crazy. Hopefully your venue has answers because mine won’t respond to me.

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My wedding is 7/18. I spoke with my Venue on this past Friday. She is still sorting through all of the guidelines/restrictions. She doesn't even know how they will do the whole dancing zones just yet. She said she is assuming she has to mark off areas on the dance floor. But she said she is going to have to figure out how to do it without destroying it. It is a beautiful and very expensive floor. I have my food tasting this weekend, so hopefully she has some more updates on what this will look like. It all sounds pretty ridiculous and my venue even said it sounds impossible to enforce and manage. She doesn't know who is who and what table they truly belong to..or who is in their "immediate family" that they are only supposed to be with.

I am hoping in the next few months, with more of the rollout of the vaccine, they loosen up on some of these crazy restrictions...

View Quoted Comment Can you let me know if you get more information after your food testing ? My venue won’t respond to me and I’m a July 11th wedding.

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My venue said every guest needs to sign in and provide the following when they arrive at the venue: name, address, phone #, email, date of birth. I am actually going to gather all of this info before the wedding and provide the list to my venue to expedite the process when my guests arrive at the venue.

Otherwise, can you imagine up to 150 ppl standing in line waiting to provide all that info to an employee at the venue? It would take FOREVER! At least if I provide this info, the guest only needs to hand over their negative test result or vaccination card and give them their name.

It will be a bit of a hassle getting all of this info, but I have several months to do so...

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Yes! I'll post any info I get from my venue after the tasting on Sunday.

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Thank you for this update from your venue. The floor of my venue is also beautiful as well. I am keeping the positive that things will loosen up as well. I agree, it does seem so impossible to enforce and manage everything.

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Of course! I have been very stressed about this, but thankfully my venue has been so open and honest during this entire pandemic. I've spoken with her probably 5 times on the phone (each for about 30min with updates). She literally read through most of the guidelines with me on the phone! Talking through it and how she might put them in place.

View Quoted Comment Are you going to let your guests know that their info. will be given to the venue? I’m just picturing people giving us a hard time because they don’t want to be tracked 🙄

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Yes, I have actually been trying to figure out the layout/wording. I am thinking of putting COVID-19 NY State Contact Tracing info on the back of my RSVP card. So when guests fill out that they are coming, they can fill out the contact tracing info. I was thinking of saying "For Potential Contact Tracing, please provide the following information for EACH attendee:"

Then at the bottom or something: "In accordance with NY state, all attendees must submit contact information to the venue. For further information please visit my website" or something like that.

If they don't give it, they can't come.... Same for the proof of COVID test or vaccination card.

Hopefully things ease up in the coming months, but we have to plan as if it won't...

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We had our food tasting yesterday. Other couples were there, but every couple had their own table (6ppl max in their party). All tables were spaced 6ft apart and the venue had them staggered with many empty tables, about 5-6 couples total at 1 time in the ballroom. Couples filtered in based on their scheduled appointment so I felt comfortable.

I didn't learn much more info than I already knew in terms of the new COVID guidelines for NY. My coordinator is still sorting things out with the dept of health on the new guidelines as some of them aren't really logistically possible and they might be amending them.

For example, the PCR test that needs to be taken within 72hrs of the event isn't completely logistically possible as it sometimes take 3-5 days to get results at certain testing sites. So NY will need to ramp up testing and the turnaround to get results to achieve this. If guests show up to the wedding and don't have a result yet or it was taken too early, they will be turned away. My coordinator said she is working with her dept of health rep to see what they will allow and if they can accept rapid tests (not just 6hrs before the event.)

She had looked into providing rapid COVID tests upon arrival for guests and she found that they were about $90/guest - which is not personally workable for us. That is, unless we don't have a lot of guests needing testing and most are vaccinated (which then they don't need to be tested). But we won't really know that until closer to the wedding. I am hoping most guests are vaccinated, but I know for a fact some are against getting vaccinated - and some have kids that can't get vaccinated yet, but I hope that is a limited number by the time of the wedding.

If the COVID tests are still required - which I think they will be, I am already planning to personally reach out to every confirmed guest to make sure they completely understand the testing requirements so there is no confusion. I plan to explain it on a card that I will send with my invite, but I feel more comfortable explaining it to everyone and hopefully avoid guests arriving with a rapid test result when they needed a PCR or the test wasn't taken in the correct time frame. I would hate for a guest to show up and be turned away because they were confused with the rules.

She is still trying to find out what to do with the dance floor. She doesn't want to put anything that will ruin the floor, but still shows the ridiculous 36in squares that each table will be assigned to dance in. She is hoping to find a removeable decal that they can take off before cleaning the floor after each event. She hopes this rule is lifted in the coming months.

All previously passed hor d'oeuvres will be served in chafing dishes now on a buffet line like the rest of the cocktail hour stations. All behind a plexi glass screen - served by a server with mask and gloves. My venue has a lot of space so they plan to spread everything out more.

She advised me to send out my invites by end of May and have them RSVP by end of June. So guests have the latest possible COVID info. My wedding is July 18. But I am assuming every venue will request info on different timelines.

I am also putting all contact tracing info needed (guest full name, address, phone, email, date of birth) on the back of my RSVP cards so I can create a spreadsheet and send it to her in advance so we don't have a long line of people waiting to sign in hours before the wedding. She does anticipate asking guests to come earlier than usual to check in since it is an additional step. But my spreadsheet to her will help expedite the process. I am assuming each venue will do things a little differently here.

Her first wedding is early April, so she is hoping she will smooth out the kinks before the summer. And hoping that by the summer, some of the guidelines are loosened/lifted.

Sorry for this lengthy message - but I thought it could be helpful to some who haven't been able to get in touch with their venue yet. And also to see maybe what other venues are doing.

I had a check in with my venue today and it is mostly the same information that we all have. Face coverings are to be worn when not seated eating and drinking. He did tell me that a rapid test will be acceptable and would have to be done 6 hours prior to the wedding. However, results may take longer and I am noting that on my Covid card. This is in addition to NYS PCR required test. A team member will be checking everyone in to review their negative Covid result as well as vaccination card. Like a previous person noted I did add to my response cards lines for my guests address, phone number and email address to make it easier at check in. There will also be a sign in sheet if people don’t fill in the information on the response card. Dancing; he is looking to utilize removable tape that will semi match the floor (they just did a remodel in 2019) and not make it look distasteful; an X would be used instead of a box. Our date is May 21; and hopefully some more of the restrictions will be loosened.


Thanks everyone for sharing all your notes from your venues. They are so helpful and also good to know what other venues are doing. Will continue to update if I hear any new news!!! Good luck to you all!

From the way I interpreted the guidelines, they only apply to weddings with a guest list above the "social gathering limit." When the guidelines came out, the gathering limit was 50 people, but afterwards he announced that the gathering limit would increase to 100 people indoors and 200 people outdoors, starting March 22nd. So if your guest list is less than that, then you wouldn't have to follow the dancing, testing guidelines, etc. It really only applies to indoor weddings with 100-150 people on the guest list. At least that's how my venue explained it to me!

I'm happy NYC is taking some proactive safety steps to host safer and bigger weddings. My fears are guests not getting their results in the 72-hour required window. I know sometimes it can take 4-5 days to get results. Or guests forgetting to get tested altogether and not being able to attend. I'm just a ball of nerves. I want to hope for the best but worry so much about the worst.

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Not the most aesthetic, but I would recommend using painters tape to mark off spots on the floor without damaging it.

I work in collegiate athletics/recreation and we have been using painters tape to mark of social distancing zones for sports practices, water break stations, etc. Since the adhesive on painters tape is designed to be removed without leaving residue, it works pretty well. It's also pretty inexpensive!

Note: Painters tape will stick/leave residue if left on for a long period of time or if you try to mop or wet clean the floor while it is on there. We accidentally left tape down for an entire basketball season during which the floor was wet mopped several times and it was a bit tricky to get off. But say if your venue does weddings only 1-2x a week and puts it down right before and removes it right after it should come off without an issue, even if people are tramping on top of it.

View Quoted Comment Has anyone been to (or seen pictures of) a wedding that has done this? We’re looking into it, and it seems like we would need a truly enormous dance floor to make it work. Curious to know what other couples are doing!

View Quoted Comment They just updated rules today.. as of May 3rd there are no more “dancing squares” 🤗