covid Etiquette—asking for Opinions!

When the pandemic began, gurus such as Miss Manners and Emily Post said etiquette is not going anywhere. If you have to downsize, you send cancellation notices for the first event because it is no longer occurring even if save the dates are sent. You send out new save the dates and invites at appropriate times for the new date. Is your venue allowing 100 guests? Many are not.


Inviting people to ceremony only is always rude. Any guest invited to the ceremony must also be invited to the reception. There is no way to get around that.

I think that any guests invited to the ceremony should also be invited to the reception. If I were a guest, and I was only invited to the ceremony, I'd be bummed out when, after the ceremony, I see many other people going to the reception, while I had to go home.

Your parents are right. It is horrifically rude to invite someone to just the ceremony and not the reception.

Like another person responded, send out cancellations and send out new invites to those you are inviting.

I agree with your parents. It would be extremely rude to invite them to the ceremony, but not the reception. The point of the reception is to thank your guests for attending your ceremony.

Hi Lauren! Just a heads up from one summer covid bride to another, we originally had a very large cathedral booked for our ceremony. The sanctuary alone could fit 1000 people. Guests were going to wear masks and space out every 2 pews. With only 110 coming, we were confident. 3 weeks before our wedding our pastor called us. He was so sad for us and apologized the church congregation decided they could not host us unless we wanted just our parents (no siblings). For reference, I’m in PA and this occurred late July. I really hope your church location is not affected like ours but it couldn’t hurt to have a backup location in mind. Just wanted you to know because I would never wish the stress we endured on any other couple ❤️

Your mother is right. It is considered rude to invite someone to your ceremony, but not your reception. I would send announcements that, due to Covid, you had to downsize and offer those guests to attend virtually if they would like.

Covid or not, it's definitely bad etiquette to invite someone to the ceremony but not the reception. I had to downsize for my June wedding and I am sending a change of plans letter to the uninvited guests and including a Zoom link so that they could join virtually if they choose to.

Your mother is right. Send the change to those not coming as soon as possible. They could be not going somewhere else due to your wedding. And will be less upset if they do not turn down a vacation or engagement while holding the date open til the last minute for you.

Sometimes we just hate it when our parents are right but in this instance, they are. Send out the cancellation to everyone you sent the STD’s & then send out the new invitations to the new group.

Sorry, but I think your parents are in the right with this one...

In addition to what others have said about inviting people to the ceremony and not the reception (please don’t do that), you can still invite them to attend virtually instead of in person.

COVID etiquette includes not hosting a super spreader event. Unless you’re getting married in the Sistene Chapel with a reception hosted at Yankee Stadium - 100 guests is too many for following the public health guidelines. Postpone or drastically reduce the numbers again.

I can’t edit my previous post but I misread the original which said six months - I read it as six weeks. The world may be a bit different in six MONTHS, so I apologize. If you were six weeks out my comment would stand. Sorry for my lack of reading comprehension.

Yes, your parents are correct. Please don’t invite guests to a ceremony but not the reception.

Only invite the people attending the reception. I actually know someone who invited some people to the engagement party and bridal shower, but weren’t invited to the wedding. It caused tension and ended some relationships because the guest was hurt. I would honestly feel the same way too.

I agree with everyone else that your parents are right. The good news is that everyone who is currently living through this pandemic (so, everyone ) understands why wedding guest lists need to be downsized. You can and should downsize with confidence that you are doing the right thing. Just make sure to tell the ones who are cut to "unsave" the date as soon as possible.

I think people understand that we are in a very unusual time and that plans can change, maybe more drastically than any of us want but such is life right now. I've read that any guest invited to the ceremony should also be invited to the reception, which I think is still a common-sense rule, even now. My fiancé and I, for example, are having a smaller ceremony likely amounting to 20 or fewer people but will have a larger reception of 100 at most (it was never our plan to have a bigger event, even prior to COVID-19.) Those who attended the ceremony are invited due to the small overlap.

If this situation was the case for me & my fiancé, I believe we would send out a cancellation for the original event to help set expectations that we were doing a reset & reconsideration of our original plans in light of the crazy world we are living in right now. Maybe consider a live stream of the ceremony so more could attend virtually, and position/explain in your new invitation to your revised guest list that your whole affair is going to be more intimate.

While your parents could have phrased it better, it is a faux pas to invite guests to only the ceremony. Guests who get “cut” will 100% understand why they can no longer attend in person!


If you still want to include them in the big day, I would live-stream your ceremony! In did something similar for my mini ceremony and actually had a lot of guests watch it live! (We jus made a private Facebook group and it did it there. Very easy and no issues!)

As someone who sent out “change of plans”
notices and who is only having a small ceremony (I’m in CA) I agree that the age old if they are invited to the ceremony, invite them to the reception should be followed. I think it should be fair so either invite everyone to a reception or just do a ceremony with all of your guests. I was so stressed about downsizing my guests lists and other than a few people who are not wary of COVID, the response was a resounding “we understand”.

Another option is like many others said, live stream the ceremony for those who didn’t make the reception cut.