Changing Guest List Because of Covid-19

We originally planned to have a 60-80 person wedding with friends and family on May 30th but that is looking unlikely. We are brainstorming alternatives, some of which include having a smaller event or postponing the event we planned to a later date.

One thing I'm a bit concerned with is our guest list and the possibility of needing or wanting to un-invite some of our guests. We came up with our guest list 6+ months ago and sent out invitations to right before everything in the US started to shut down because of Covid-19. At the time, a pandemic was not on our radar and thus we weren't overly concerned with where our guests were traveling from or what their lifestyle habits or socializing activities were.

If we just need to have a smaller event due to government restrictions, I think the guests we un-invite will be super understanding and there will be no hard feelings. However, if we just push back our date and still try to have the wedding we planned, I'm not sure we'd want all of the same guests at our wedding, depending on when it actually happens.

We have older parents with pre-existing health conditions and its very important to us that they are able to attend and enjoy our wedding safely. Most of our guests, however, are younger (late-20s to mid-late 30s) and I'm a bit concerned that some of them are not taking Covid-19 seriously. While many of our guests are social distancing, working from home, and limiting trips within and outside of their communities, we know some are still regularly traveling to and from urban hot spots to more rural areas with fewer infections and also still meeting up with others for social activities, despite government regulations and guidelines. We also have guests who live in higher incidence areas compared to where we are (including some VIPs). I don't know that it's appropriate to ask guests to practice better social distancing in the weeks leading up to our wedding (and I realize its somewhat hypocritical to ask them not to socialize so they can come to our social gathering, but I feel a wedding is special and these times are extraordinary). I also feel that it's unfair to discriminate against our guests who live in or closer to hot spots where there are more infections or do not have jobs that allow them to practice social distancing as easily. However, I'm really concerned that having these people at our wedding will put our vulnerable parents at greater risk, especially if we only change our date by a few months and it's considered safe and legal to have a wedding but also Covid-19 is still a concern (all of the phases for reopening recommended by the White House involve protecting and isolating vulnerable populations until life is basically 99-100% normal again). I also think about the other guests at our wedding and would hate for someone to come to our wedding and then think "well if I knew there was going to be someone from NYC here I would not have come, because now I don't feel safe." I would love to trust that everyone attending would make the same decisions about traveling that we would and not risk endangering other people for their own benefit, but clearly that's not the case. Normally, it would be none of our business what our guests are doing in their free time, but is it at all appropriate to ask guests to follow the guidelines or just not come, or recommend that people in high risk areas just stay home? Also, of the people invited about a quarter of them are SO's or plus ones of guests and we have no personal relationship with them at all, so we have no idea what they are up to.

Additionally, if we push our date back a year or more, in hopes that Covid-19 will be a much lesser threat then, I am certain our relationships with people will change over time, and there may be people we invited that we don't feel as close to a year from now, and other friends that we grow closer to and want to be at our wedding. We also have a few guests who could not make our original date but may be able to attend a future date, and we don't want our guest list to balloon past 80 people. I'm thinking if we push back until 2021, we will just tell people the wedding is postponed and not share our new date with all of our original guests right away, but I'm not sure how we will prevent everyone from learning the new details once we update our wedding website. Is there a statute of limitations for wedding guest lists? I'm sure everyone currently invited will assume they are also invited to our "redo" unless we tell them otherwise.

We haven't made any decisions yet. Has anyone else given this any thought?