Planning a wedding during Covid-19: Part One

We were talking last night about couples with planning weddings during this Covid-19 pandemic and Nathan said something that really stuck with me. He said, people will still get married; it’s just going to look different.

This might be going on for a very long time–18 months–or more. For those who don’t want to wait, we are here to help you plan an incredible wedding in these unprecedented times.

It’s true, for the last hundred years or so, most people have been getting married without a pandemic to consider. But now, for possibly months (or even years), we will have to consider accommodations when planning a wedding during a global pandemic.

First, I suggest you grieve a little for the wedding you envisioned. Things might not look exactly the way you had hoped, and sometimes we just need to cry it out. Once that’s done, let’s pick up and move towards a solution. Covid-19 doesn’t mean you can’t have an amazing wedding and start your beautiful life together. It just might look a little different, and we will be waiting a little while until our city opens up again. We may yet be a few months from that, but it’s coming.

UNCERTAINTY

These are uncertain times–we hear that it might be as long 18 months, 2 years, or more, before people are comfortable getting together in large groups of 100 and more. This depends on a few factors: the availability of infection testing, antibody testing, the production and distribution of a vaccine, travel restrictions, and the number of infected vs recovered people in your community. All of this will take time.

Sounds like a scary movie. Yup.

It’s hard not to focus on the frightening stuff. But that stuff has always been happening in our world. It’s just close-up now, and it happens to directly impact weddings globally.

STARTING TO PLAN

Once you have accepted that this is the new normal, you have to ask yourself the first and most important question: do you want to wait?

To us, this seems like the starting point. Realistically speaking, it may take months, or even a couple of years before people are comfortable assembling in large groups (in close quarters) at a wedding. We just don’t know. So waiting to have that exact wedding you were envisioning and planning for might mean, for right now, a year or two.

If that’s not an option for you, I suggest planning a wedding that reflects the time, and using some creativity to create a wedding that you will love.

Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself while planning a wedding during the Covid-19 pandemic:

• My important guests can’t travel – how can I include them?
• I can’t have a large wedding – how can I plan a smaller wedding?
• What are some choices I can make to protect people at my wedding and make them comfortable?

Check out our next post for more detail for each of these questions!