Navigating your wedding planning in the current COVID climate

Image by Alannah Jade Photography

Planning a wedding can be stressful, hard and very overwhelming. Throw in a global pandemic with lockdowns, restrictions and possible postponements or cancellations, and suddenly planning your dream wedding day starts to turn into a bit of a nightmare.

Changes to your wedding plans (and government restrictions) means that there is also the possibility that you may need to move your wedding day, downsize your guest list or have a few difficult conversations with guests and/or vendors.

While this uncertainty that we’re currently facing (especially here in Perth + WA) is difficult to navigate, restrictions and guidelines are unfortunately out of our control. 

We’re still waiting on further clarification on when borders may be open so we can welcome our loved ones here - and currently there are no restrictions for weddings in place.

But it’s hard not to see some sort of restrictions being announced and introduced in the lead up to opening the border, or when the government does set a date. There are already certain restrictions set for weddings around the country and these differ in each state.

So while restrictions and mandates are out of your control, there are still a few things you can control during your planning and leading up to your wedding day.

ISOLATING

In the week leading up to your wedding, it is recommended that you as a couple, as well as your wedding party, family members and any other “non-negotiable” guests, isolate as much as possible to reduce the chance of catching COVID while out in the community. This includes limiting interactions with as many people as possible to keep yourselves extra safe and hopefully away from an exposure site or infected person(s).

N95’s

Omicron is a different COVID beast and research shows that wearing a well-fitted N95 mask (also known as a respiratory mask or particle-filtering mask) is 75x more effective at preventing the spread of COVID than a surgical or cloth mask. So it may be a good idea to stock up on a few of these types of masks for you and your “non-negotiable” guests to wear if you do need to go out in public in the weeks leading up to your wedding day.

BONUS TIP : Masks only work if they’re well-fitted and worn correctly. No mask is gonna protect you if you’re wearing that bad boy UNDER your nose 🙅🏻‍♀️❌

KEEP YOURSELVES UPDATED

Keep up to date with current government restrictions and mandates as best you can. I know watching the news can be depressing and not great for your mental health, so definitely stay away from that if it’s not something you watch anyway. Your venue and vendors will be up to date with current restrictions and can brief you on these, but it does pay to be in the know about these yourself too. 

Currently there are vaccination mandates in place in WA for large venues with 500+ people capacity, Crown and nightclubs, but from Monday 31 January, these mandates are being extended to all hospitality venues and indoor entertainment venues, amongst others. Depending on your wedding venue, you, your guests and your vendors will need to show proof of vaccination to enter the premises for your wedding.

You can get further information about the Government mandates here.

KEEP IN CONTACT WITH YOUR VENDORS

Keep in constant contact with your vendors. We’re already reducing our interactions with people and conducting meetings over Zoom to limit our movements so we can provide the best service to you - our couples - on your wedding day. We’ve come up with contingency plans with other vendors to ensure your wedding day isn’t affected if we do catch COVID ourselves, or we have to isolate after being at an exposure site. You can chat with your vendor directly about the contingency plans they have in place.

HAVE A PLAN B

Finally, it pays to have a “Plan B” for your wedding day - just in case. Options could include either postponing, downsizing or cancelling your wedding day. Having to make these changes is extremely upsetting and heartbreaking (especially if it’s not the first time you have postponed!) and if this is you, my heart goes out to you and I’m so sorry.

You want to make sure your Plan B is one you can fall in love with - as hard as it may be. After all, this could still be your wedding day and you want to enjoy it as best you can, even if there are special family members and friends missing. 

Include a final date to put your Plan B into action too. This date should be far enough in advance for you to organise/reschedule/postpone certain elements from your day - I would recommend at least 10 days prior but ideally 2-3 weeks before your original wedding date.

It may also pay to have your Plan B in place in case of certain guests catching COVID or having to isolate. 

Having another plan in your back pocket ahead of time should give you a little bit of reassurance that your dream day will work out! It just may look a little different than you originally pictured.

Bottom line - you don’t want to catch COVID in the lead up to your wedding day. And you don’t want your family and friends to catch it either (ever, but certainly not right before your dream day). 

If you implement even one of the tips above, you’ll waltz into your wedding day breathing a little easier, even if just for your one beautiful, dream day.

And if you’re finding this current climate especially stressful and challenging, you can always flick me an email or send me a DM to have a chat, vent or rant and I can help with a little reassurance.

Alternatively, book a free 30-min info call and we can put together a list of helpful steps you can take to keep your stress and overwhelm at bay in the lead up to your wedding day.

Will you be needing to have a difficult conversation with guests and/or vendors about your changing wedding plans? Keep an eye out for next week’s blog, which will cover how to have these difficult conversations and how to word your communications. It’ll be live on Friday 4 February