Wedding scheduled for September 2020

My bff is still getting married. I am matron of honor. She’s planning on spacing and seating by households out at tables, she’s gonna provide masks and lots of sanitizer. She’s not gonna display her wedding cake. And she’s gonna have this social distancing system:
https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-forums/social-distancing-wristbands/b6a9778e68d54f65.html

We are still getting married 9/12!!! We are spacing out seating and each table will have one family/social unit (the best I can). We’ll have hand sanitizer at all the high touch places like guestbook, everyone is required to wear masks when not seated at their table (and we’ll have some on hand), and our buffet is being served. We were initially planning to have a crepe cake, but FH thinks it would be better to go with prepackaged desserts for guests to take, so we contacted his favorite cookie shop. We’re also not allowed to having mingling or dancing per health department guidelines, but we can still do a first dance and our wedding is in the morning with a short breakfast reception so we weren’t planning on a lot of dancing. For cocktail/social hour, it’s outside on the patio, but instead of having self serve food stations each table will be given their own tray of appetizers and will be served drinks. We also cut our guest list to 50% capacity at the venue, 50 people, and it is primarily immediate family and a few close friends. We thought about providing some kind of indicator for people to wear showing their level of comfort with distancing- primarily for those wanting everyone to stay 6 feet away so that they don’t end up in an uncomfortable situation, but with no mingling allowed we’re just not sure it’s worth the time or money. Our feeling is that most people who aren’t comfortable won’t come or will come to the outdoor ceremony (where we can all comfortable distance) and skip the reception. We’ve gone back and forth so much during this pandemic, but we both agreed we are getting married this year even if it’s just the two of us and our kids. We have until 30 days out to cancel for a full refund with our venue/caterer, so we’re just watching the situation.

We postponed to 9/26 from 6/27 in the Seattle area, and it's looking more and more like a small, immediate-family-only ceremony in September is what's going to make the most sense for us. This spring, our area was on track to be in pretty good shape by late summer/early fall, but not so much anymore and our reopening is currently paused statewide. Reopening would have to go incredibly smoothly beginning in August for us to be able to keep our guest list of ~130. Even if we could, there are a number of safety precautions now required for weddings in WA, including seating people solely with people they live with, requiring masks when not eating, requiring 6+ feet of distance between households at all times, etc.

Between not being able to celebrate the way we'd like to (hugs, dancing, a generally carefree party) and being worried about bringing together a bunch of people who have been operating with a wide variety of risk tolerances in their daily lives, we're not feeling great about a big gathering. We may or may not do a big celebration later, but at this point are expecting we'll likely be letting guests know at the end of this month that we're sticking with a small ceremony for this year - basically parents and siblings. Since even that group has some high-risk people in it, we're starting to put some serious thought into what we need to do to keep people safe, including staying outside and distanced as much as possible, masks most of the time except for hopefully a few photos, having the ceremony outside and keeping plenty of distance between us and our officiant so my fiancé and I can say our vows without masks, etc.

There's definitely a lot to think about - in my opinion, it's all about deciding what's most important to you. For us, it's getting married this year one way or another, and keeping costs low so we can preserve the majority of our wedding budget for a party to celebrate once we're on the other side of this!

Just made the decision today to keep our postponed date of 9/20. I cannot see myself stressing over this wedding for a whole entire year. I’m just waiting to hit play and get on with life. We got married on our June date and we have been trying to conceive. It was becoming way too anxiety provoking trying to plan a pregnancy around a wedding just so my dress would fit. So I said eff it. We will space out 6ft, sit families together and leave two seats open at each table. Guests will wear masks while mingling. Our buffet got changed to plated buffet and our cake will not be displayed until time
to cut, which they will do in the kitchen. Sani stations and hand washing before sitting at table. Nothing else I can do. Ready for this to be over.

We canceled our September stateside reception and decided to do a 1 year anniversary celebration. We didn't want to minimize our vision or put anyone's health in jeopardy. It was a hard, thought out decision because we've planned for 2.5 years but I want us to be free and able to enjoy ourselves without COVID looming in the background.

We are still going through with our September wedding. I don't want to wait anymore and neither does my FH. We want to start trying for a baby after the wedding so for us postponing has never been an option for us. We live in WI where things are decided by the county instead of the state. The max for our venue capacity is 288, which worked well for our guest list. As expected we are having more declines, right now we are at 50 attending and 15 declines. The tables will be 6 feet apart, we did go there last week and they were starting a set up for this past weekend; honestly it looks fine. We are doing a cupcake display still, because my dad made this amazing cupcake stand; the caterer has been nice enough to offer to serve the cupcakes free of charge. We had to axe the s'mores we were going to have for a late night snack because we can't have self serve anything. Dancing is allowed so that is great. Masks are not required but recommended.

View Quoted Comment Hi Renee! Congratulations and may God bless your marriage and hopefully baby will be in the oven soon!! We are debating and its getting stressful!! I don't want to stress over it no more! But at the same time I'm worried about our kids and older family members. Wouldn't want no body to get sick because we decided to move forward.

View Quoted Comment Hi Kelsey! That is awesome! Wish you guys the best! We were thinking the same, having tables 8 feet apart, seating families together and we even changed venues to have something more ventilated. Its just worrying about anyone getting sick is making this whole process crazy!

View Quoted Comment Hi Ingrid! We are thinking the same, we just don't want to wait another year. But I took off today because I need to decide and make it official!

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I agree. The thing that i like most about my venue besides it looking amazing (lol) is that it is large so we do have the space needed to social distance. I put on my website, because I think common sense is key right now, that my venue's max capacity was 800 and they have cut that down drastically.

View Quoted Comment Hi Jessalyn! That is some great feedback! I agree completely.. we just have been planning for so long to not be able to do it as planned is disappointing!

View Quoted Comment I feel you girl. September 6 here and also trying to conceive.

View Quoted Comment Congratulations! Everyone trying to have babies! God bless you all! I cant imagine trying to plan a wedding and a baby, that would be even stressful!

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I know, it's SO hard to think about what's feasible now vs. the weddings we all had planned. However and whenever it happens, wishing you a wedding day that's full of joy and love.

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Oh, I feel for you, Renee. We're in the same boat - postponed from June to September, and the thought of postponing again to yet another date that would further delay our hope to start a family was so stressful. We're sticking with likely a small ceremony on our September date and are hoping to reschedule a larger celebration whenever makes sense down the road. Wishing you and your family all the love and joy in the world, despite how frustrating things feel right now.

View Quoted Comment Awww thanks Jessalyn 🥰. If I’m being honest, if there was a way to cancel and get 90% of my deposits back, I would have cancelled when we got married in June. Oh well, I’m just excited to finally be done with this wedding. Good luck to you as well and I hope you have an amazing wedding.

View Quoted Comment Thank you, Renee! 🥰

View Quoted Comment We pro and con'd it, so it took emotions out of it. I got a piece of paper and divided it in half, one side were the pro's, the other side was the con's. We ended up having more con's, so we postponed. Hope my suggestion helps.

View Quoted Comment Hi Melle! Those are great suggestions thank you! How do you feel about it, as a part of the bridal party? I've asked mine but they all say whatever I decide they'll go with it!

View Quoted Comment I’m pretty nervous. But you know I’m just gonna try to say safe myself because her dance floor surprisingly is still going to be open and so there’s not gonna be any mandatory masks. But it is what it is I wanna be there for her you know so all I can do is try to keep myself safe