California Brides

We are 9/5/20 in Lodi with a guest list of about 150. I think we are going to postpone a year. I just dont see a world where we can celebrate with our friends and family without fear. I dont want everyone in masks and I want to be able to hug my guests and get down (within 6ft) on the dance floor. It is so hard because I go back and forth but i also think we need to postpone for my mental health. The news and worrying about exposing our loved ones is making my anxiety level so high! We are going to do a small backyard ceremony on our original date and then postpone a year for the larger celebration and a vow renewal.

Our wedding was going to be 7/11/20 in the Los Angeles area, but in April we made the heartbreaking decision to postpone until 7/10/21. We had two major reasons: 1) we were going to have around 300 guests and a good number of them are part of the vulnerable population, so we wanted to keep them safe and not make them feel like they couldn’t come to our wedding and 2) it seems that even if the world does start getting back to normal by July, everyone will probably still be wearing masks, gloves and having to stay apart from each other which is really just not what we want out of a wedding.

We figured that if we are spending this much money, and since we have waited this long (high school sweethearts that are now 26 and 29 here!) that we should wait until we can have the wedding of our dreams. Luckily, all of our vendors are available on the new date so that part of it was fairly painless. The videographer we REALLY wanted that was not available on our current date is available on the new date, so that was a nice win too. We are currently trying to get bachelorette and bachelor party related expenses refunded.

The reason we chose to postpone for a full year is that 1) they seem to expect the virus to peak again in the fall 2) regular flu season picks up in the winter/spring 3) we are planning an outdoor wedding so combatting weather in the winter/spring would just be another complication 4) they seem to expect that a vaccination will be available in the next 10-12 months, which would theoretically mean everything will be 100% back to normal by then and that we can have a mask -and-glove-free wedding of our dreams.

Sorry for the long post. I have been following this thread for weeks as we tried to decide what to do, and I wanted to share our plan in case it might help anyone else. I hope everyone stays healthy, and I’m rooting for all of us!

As I look through discussions, I see I commented here, and I have an update! My venue is as family owned estate, so they will not be having any events on June 20, 2021 since it's Fathers Day. With that said, June 20th is such a special date to me and that's the date I want my anniversary to be on, so just last week, FH and I decided that we are just going to get legally married on our original date of June 20, 2020. I just can't picture my anniversary on any other date. We will just do something super simple with 1-2 witnesses and sign the papers. No vows , no fancy dress, nothing extra. We will save all the wedding traditions for the actual wedding celebration with our family and friends. Now that the date of the wedding doesn't matter, I am asking my venue what dates are still available in 2020. Ideally, I would probably move forward with a September/ October wedding and whoever comes comes, or I just will do it sometime in 2021. I am just tired of all this back and forth with dates and figuring out when the wedding will happen. With the way things are looking in California, I really think that by end of summer/early fall, people are going to be so tired of staying at home and social distancing, that I think people will attend a wedding - especially if it's on the smaller scale like less than 125 guests which mine is, and my venue is outdoors and A LOT of open space. I just don't believe anything the news is saying anymore. At this point, social distancing and all these health measures will most likely continue until next year until there is a vaccine or effective treatment for the illness.

Ok so plans have changed for me. We are getting married next week at the San Joaquin clerks office. We will host lunch at our house after for immediate family.

Update on my current situation, I finally get the chance to tour my venue, since I had to book ours last minute.

Hi, I'm in the LA area and my wedding is Sept 18 in Topanga, CA. I used the handy survey option offered on the wedding website here. We decided after the answers that we are going ahead with the wedding. We will have under 20 people attending now and we are going to Zoom the wedding for the people who did not want to attend. We did have 1 vendor cancel on us. If the situation gets worse now that restaurants are opening back up we may reconsider. We will be offering masks for people who want them. I asked the venue if we could space dinner tables out and they said that wasn't a problem. Seating will be for 2 people at a table and seating spaced out for the wedding.

Postponed from 5/16/2020 to 8/28/2020, our wedding is in Alameda County and we have an anticipated guest count of 110-125. If we have to limit our guests so be it, but I am not postponing again!! Our venue is large and can be fully outside if needed. They confirmed guests do not have to wear masks because our venue is also dining therefor when eating / drinking you do not have to wear a mask. Servers will be though. Things are slowly but surely opening up and we have faith this wedding will happen!

Update from me. I commented on this thread about a month ago. I was finally able to contact my venue, and the owner is positive my wedding can still happen. I also might lower my guest count even more. I'm located in Northern CA and my wedding will be in El Dorado county. CA is quickly moving through phases and I think we are almost to phase three, which is when weddings are allowed. So I'm still feeling hopeful for all of us!

Hello Megan! Congrats,

I am so with you on worrying about Covid-19 and how this can affect all of us planning our wedding. My Fiancé is in the military so it made our date and transitioning a bit harder. We finally set a date at a venue in San Diego, CA. I am located in Los Angeles, CA and he is stationed in Louisiana. We decided on July 15,2021 to be safe and made sure our venue had an insurance policy that would allow us to move dates if the pandemic would still affect our wedding day without holding any fee's for changing the date. Unfortunately most dates are set and postponed so we settled for a Thursday wedding in the Summer. As of now I have seen so many beautiful couples marrying on their original dates with a minimony or micromony wedding celebration. Then later holding a bigger celebration with all of their loved ones. As for me and my fiancé we just decided to wait and pray that he doesn't deploy during the month of our wedding. There is so many other obstacles that can come into play but I believe that as long as you and your fiancé are on the same page what ever you decide it will be a beautiful special day for the both of you best wishes !

10/3 in Pleasanton- Looking to postpone but have been getting pushback from our venue saying it is too soon and that we need to wait.

View Quoted Comment We just changed my daughter's venue from Alameda County to Contra Costa because it was opening faster. She can have 100 people for her outdoor ceremony/reception. It looks like Alameda will be starting that allowance next week.

View Quoted Comment Alameda county will be allowing 100ppl gatherings? If thats true then that may be good news for me. Im in San Joaquin

View Quoted Comment I’m in Napa and they said right now it’s 25 people gathering

View Quoted Comment When is your daughter’s wedding date? Is it only outdoor?

View Quoted Comment It is August 1st strictly outdoors on 10 acres.

View Quoted Comment Contra Costa opened to 100ppl outdoors for cultural ceremonies (weddings)/religious services. Alameda is slowly opening.

My wedding isn't until August next year in Sacramento, so right now I'm not making any plans to change the date of course. However, my cousin is getting married September 19th of this year, in Solano County, and is strongly thinking she will have a small ceremony with just the parents and wedding party, and will do a big reception on their 1 year anniversary. We just don't see restrictions being lifted to the point where she can have 120-150 there by September.

View Quoted Comment Thank you! And I also made a 50 person guestlist just in case.

View Quoted Comment Wow where is your venue? What is the current gathering size?

I had a family friend come down with COVID-19 recently. They are younger. They are recovering. They also lost their sense of taste. So that has motivated me even more to reschedule my fall wedding of this year.

However, as you can see in the other discussion involving Nestldown, it is not going well. There is no way that we can afford to pay extra money to reschedule to a Friday or Saturday of next year.