We were engaged last summer and new from the beginning we did not want a super long engagement. We found an amazing venue and had a date for April 2020. About a month before our date, our venue reached out to reschedule us due to Covid and offered us new dates without charging us a rebooking fee. We settled for a date in September thinking it would be better than December and also naively hoping that the world would find a way to get through this pandemic before our new date. Well, obviously that didn't happen. We are now a little over 60 days out from our new date and struggling with what to do. Selfishly we do not want to postpone again because honestly there's no knowing if things will even be better next year, 2022, or whenever. Our original ceremony was supposed to be 125 people outdoors with indoor family style dining, dancing, all night partying since the venue has a built in hotel.
We live in Northern California and right now indoor dining is not allowed. Our venue is still not offering refunds (yes we have had multiple people tell us to push harder, threaten lawsuits, etc. but again that would mean we would have to postpone and plan once again not knowing if things will be better a 3rd time) and only allowing postponements. We feel like we are in a tough spot because we don't want to postpone again but also don't want to be irresponsible.
Where we are now we have decided to cut our guest list down to about 65 people, having large families on both sides, and take as many precautions as possible. We would have an outdoor ceremony in a spacious site with LOTS of room to distance. We would also ask everyone to wear face coverings. So far most people have said they would be comfortable attending the ceremony with these precautions in place. Our dinner would be in their outdoor courtyard with similar distancing measures in place and changing our seating to 4-6 people per large table. We would cut out cocktail hour and dancing aside from our first dance together. Where we are struggling right now is being comfortable with our plan since we do not want to postpone again. Everyone in our modified invite list has been taking similar precautions to us and is doing everything they can to stay safe. We don't want people to feel pressured to attend, but if we continue we would really like them all to be a part of our special day.
With all these precautions in place, would you feel comfortable attending an outdoor, distanced ceremony with 65 guests where everyone was wearing face coverings? Attending an outdoor dinner with the same conditions? Feel free to throw in why or why not. THANKS!
