Love During a Pandemic: Tips to Plan Your Wedding
Just as you will be telling the story of how you met for the rest of your life, love in the times of COVID will be a story people want to hear. Where were you when the world stopped turning? Big life events promise to be very different in this new post-COVID society, and 35% of couples have postponed their weddings until after 2021 or later! Planning a wedding is stressful at the best of times, but it’s important to follow a few easy guidelines to keep yourself healthy and energetic, and your wedding day safe and fun.
Stay Healthy!
Wedding planning will compete with work and family responsibilities for all your extra time, and it’s important to factor in exercise when planning your wedding. Staying active and maintaining a healthy diet of good quality foods is critical to keeping up your stamina. Stay hydrated and listen to your body for clues on what you need to stay healthy. Remember, making sweeping changes to how you eat could seem to affect you negatively, a common element of candida die off symptoms, where you might start to feel flu-like symptoms or lethargy after a diet change. Give your body and mind time to adjust to the new routine, and in a few days you will be stronger than ever!
Wedding Day Tips for Safe Celebration
1. Digital wedding communications
Guests have come to expect electronic wedding communications – so this one won’t be much of a stretch. Using digital wedding invitations gives you more design options, faster turn-around, and costs significantly less than traditional paper and mail invitations. Many brides find they need to send several updates, especially in the times of COVID, with changes, requests and important information. Consider throwing a quiz night or virtual wine tasting for your wedding guests, using a platform like Teams, Zoom or Slack – and let your guests know you are excited to finally see them in person! Creating a digital way to communicate with guests and family about the event will leave brides relieved, and with a lot more free time on their hands.
2. Outdoor reception spacesMosquitos, rain or wind are mood killers on the best of days, and the uncertainty of nature sometimes leaves too much to chance on this special day. Luckily, outdoor reception spaces make the chances of a COVID-related cancellation very unlikely. Many venues have seen the need for better outdoor reception spaces, and have invested heavily into making them as weather and bug-proof as possible. Using an outdoor reception space also means you can rely on the splendour of nature for some of your decorations, lowering the overall cost of the event.
3. Create a wedding websitePicking the right wedding website means working with a host that provides great graphics, communication and announcement functions. Some wedding websites have even incorporated applications, to help guests with directions, event times and locations and contact information for the organizers. Keep the website updated regularly, just as you would update your social media pages. Pictures of your potential cakes or sharing funny wedding planning stories will get guests counting down the days till your wedding with anticipation.
4. Space out arrival timesThe pandemic has left many fearful and contemplative about loss – not a great theme for your wedding. Staggering arrival times will ensure no sensitive guest feels overwhelmed after the last year of no contact. Even the most well-adjusted among us are re-adjusting to life after the pandemic, and might choose to arrive early or late to avoid crowds. Plan to occupy early guests with activities or food and drinks before the event, and leave extra seating in the rear of your wedding for late-arrivals.
5. Tapas over buffetEveryone used to love a good buffet, but we all feel a bit more comfortable without needing a sneeze guard since 2020. Consider serving small plates to each table or group, or splurge for individual meals for each attendee. By consolidating all food and drinks to individual tables, you save space you would have otherwise used for food service – space you could use to expand your dance floor or install a photo-booth for social media photos.
We are emerging from a global pandemic, and it’s time to celebrate. Following just a few safety guidelines will ensure that both you and your guests enjoy your wedding to the fullest – and might just inspire you to come up with a few post-COVID celebratory activities. One day, you will be asked how you and your significant other survived the pandemic, and you can tell them that your love was as timeless as your wedding day.