Wedding tips for COVID-19 pandemic

Planning and having a wedding at any time is incredibly stressful; planning and having a wedding during a worldwide pandemic, however, feels impossible.

My fiance and I’s wedding is scheduled for June 20th and was originally scheduled to take place at our hometown church. Since originally making our plans, our church has shut down all gatherings so we’ve been forced to find another venue.

Every wedding industry from catering to DJ’s have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent government restrictions. We eventually decided to have a significantly smaller wedding at a family member’s home, because that was better than simply canceling or rescheduling to a later date.

With all the negatives out there, the worst part has been having no precedent to tell us how to deal with this. So, here are five tips on wedding planning during a pandemic:

1. Put your safety and the safety of your guests first. Encourage elderly family members not to come or to facetime the wedding (as weird as that may be). Make sure to provide buckets of hand sanitizer and masks to those who want them. Only invite absolutely essential guests to your wedding.
2. Find ways to keep yourself relaxed and calm. My fiance uses “present/guided meditation,” a guided meditation app that helps her relax when things get really stressful.
3. Take everyone’s advice with a grain of salt. People are going to try and be helpful, but oftentimes their advice can come off as condescending. It’s important to remember none of them have planned a wedding during this time, and they can’t know what you’re going through.
4. There’s nothing wrong with eloping. Don’t feel pressured to have a traditional wedding just because you feel like society or your family is telling you to. If you feel yourself getting too stressed, there is nothing wrong with eloping with the person you love.
5. Have a bigger reception later. If you do decide to elope or at least have a small wedding, it’s a good idea to host a different reception or a house party later in the year with people you would have invited to your wedding if you could. This will make them feel important and hopefully cause less drama with the people left out of the wedding.