Covid testing at wedding

I personally would be totally fine with doing a test at the door, but, with that said - if someone tests positive at the wedding, they could potentially be exposing all the other people in the vicinity of them to COVID.

I would suggest something along the lines of the following instead:

To ensure the safety of our friends and family, all guests shall be required to have tested negative for COVID-19. We suggest guests make arrangements to be COVID tested in the 48 hours preceeding our wedding but shall have rapid COVID tests available on the day for those who are unable to make prior arrangements.

Yes I am having testing and rapid tests available - but I will absolutely be sending positives home. I think it is too risky to let them stay. Masking is great - but I wouldn't be comfortable knowing someone positive was in the room with me. I am going to try and het kits out the day before - but my guests will be local.

I like the wording suggested above!

Will they be tested before the ceremony or just before they go into the reception? Your wording sounds like it would be after the ceremony when they are going to be entering the building. If you’re going to do this, it should be before the ceremony so that anyone who is positive doesn’t spend the ceremony exposing everyone sitting next to them.

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I came to the comments to say this too. If you are going to test, make sure it is done BEFORE any event, ie, before the ceremony. I would ask people to get tested within whatever time frame (we are doing 72 hours) and say you will have some rapid tests available onsite if they are not able to make arrangements to get tested prior.

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The reception and ceremony are at the same location, it's a waterfront mansion so people would leave their cars with the valet and then be asked to test upon arrival.

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I love this wording! thank you!

Thanks all! we are going to request people get tested within a 72 hour period before the wedding, or they may opt to do a rapid test upon arrival.

I suggest putting covid info on your website bc it changes too frequently to put up to date info on your invite. My invite had so little space I put like nothing on it and everything was on my website. Personally I mandated vaccines for my wedding but decided against testing at the wedding. I had an outdoor ceremony and indoor reception. My rabbi tried to convince me to do testing at the door but I discussed it my friend who is a virologist (I’m a microbiology professor) and decided it would be a nightmare. If you have 100 people, 5 will have a false positive/negative by chance. Also it could cause chaos and be majorly disruptive if someone is positive. Can you imagine the response of the people surrounding the positive person? Plus are you really going to turn away someone at the door after they traveled to your wedding? If you mandate testing, you ask people to do it before they travel to the wedding. Otherwise it will create chaos. Also tests for 100 people will cost you like $6k!!

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I would just like to applaud you and your FH. I think your plans are excellent, providing options for testing, one of which you are paying for. Options for quarantine, which you are also paying for. As a guest, I would be fine with rapid testing at the door, and if positive would be understanding that I could not attend.

Congrats to you both, and I hope you and your guests are positive-free on the big day!

I think having the rapids at the door is fine. My one potential critique would be, if you're having them wait presumably close to each other (in one area) outside for results, I would not offer drinks or anything that may require them to take their masks off, or have them pulled down, because if you do have any positives, they're then more likely to have exposed to all those other guests and wait staff.

I would definitely make sure a PCR test is completed prior to the wedding. Rapids have a fairly high rate of false positives and negatives with false negatives being far more common. Having some extras at the door is fine. HOWEVER, if someone tests positive absolutely do not, by any means let them remain at the wedding. If I knew a friend of mine had allowed someone who tested positive for COVID to remain at an event where they risked harming both guests and wait staff I would be livid and it would probably ruin the friendship. If the goal of testing is safety, what would be the point if youre going to let positive people stay anyway?

I know potentially having someone drive there and test positive just to turn around and go home wouldn't be ideal, but thats why you ask for proof of negative test beforehand. Masks do help, but especially with Omicron, only N95 and KN95's are effective enough to really protect people in close contact and they're not exactly easy to get ahold of.

If you're concerned about someone missing the ceremony I would look into streaming it either through facebook, twitch, instagram, somewhere for people who cant be in attendance can view it.

View Quoted Comment This is really helpful! How did you “enforce” the mandate or make sure people had negative tests, if any all? Like a gooogle form?

View Quoted Comment I had guests fill out a survey with the save the date (on evite) asking if they were or would be vaccinated by the wedding. Pretty much everyone filled out yes. One of the groomsmen we convinced to change his mind and the other 3 people didn’t come. It was an honor system but I trusted my family and friends. I invited a lot of PhDs and MDs and RNs who pretty much all got vaxxed as soon as we could. Also lots of people asked me about it and wouldn’t have come if everyone wasn’t vaxxed. For vendors I asked them too (if I interacted with them closely). Since I couldn’t control servers I asked all servers and bartenders to wear masks. My day of coordinator asked for me. I had to fire my initial DJ (major drama there, he was a huge a** and didn’t refund me), I had to drop from assistants to one assistant for my hair and makeup artist since she couldn’t find 3 vaxxed assistants, and for my photographer I made her wear a mask and she wasn’t that close to anyone so I accepted that she wasn’t vaxxed since I really liked her work and we spent most of our time together outside.

View Quoted Comment Thanks so much, extremely helpful. Plan to do the same. But what about asking guests to text within 48 hours beforehand - did the have to fill out any kind of form, or just honor system? Even if you didn’t do this, what do you recommend now?

(Test, not text)

View Quoted Comment I think this depends on you, your guests, the current case rates, and your comfort level. I didn’t do this bc case rates were super low when I got married. I would probably do an honor system because you have enough stress to deal with in 48 hours before you wedding I wouldn’t want to deal with this too. Also, I would give people over a months notice so they can acquire a rapid test. I ordered 5 on Dec 23 and they still haven’t come.

View Quoted Comment True!! Thanks 🙏