Fall 2020 brides! What are you picturing your ceremony to look like for physical distancing (if it's not lifted by then)?

My wedding isn’t til December but my venue actually reached out to me saying that if this is still a problem by then, they will maintain social distancing protocols. I would definitely switch to a plated dinner instead of buffet and have less people at tables. I’m also going to put good smelling hand sanitizers at tables. Some kind of winter scent😊

October wedding here! Honestly if this is still going on by then (which i imagine that that is going to be a great possibility) we will probably reschedule our wedding... i don’t want to have to worry about compromising on something that means so much to my fiancé and i

We’ve been planning an intimate wedding as well since before the pandemic, approximately 30 guests. I’m not sure what we’ll do tbh. The reception doesn’t have enough space to distance guests so we’ll most likely have to reschedule if we’re under similar restrictions.

September wedding here. I'm not worried. My venue is rather large with a max capacity of 600. My guest list is 140 so my venue feels that this shouldn't be an issue because with having so much space we should be able to practice social distancing if need be. Honestly I'm not worried. Restrictions will start to go down, they already are.

I've thought a little about this but I don't have any plans in place, and tbh I'm not sure what we could do. There's no sitting 6ft apart at a group dinner. We could make it a bit better with fewer chairs per table, but that won't get anywhere close to 6ft. Our dance floor space is pretty big so that will probably help, and the ceremony is in a large church so people will be able to spread out. But mandatory 6ft at all times isn't possible.

View Quoted Comment What a great idea! Love the sanitizers as favors ❤️

Mine's in August, so I don't even know if it's going to happen at the moment, but if it does:
We're already having a seated dinner and passed hors d'oeuvres (no stations) so that's probably the safest way to do food.
We'll seat whole families/households together.Less dancing, more lawn games. (It's a pretty formal venue, but we will be outside.)We'll still walk around to every table, but no hugs our handshakes and we'll go to the oldest people first (or just Zoom them in from home).Individual/couples photo instead of group shots, I'll Photoshop some together eventually.Hand sanitizer favors at every plate.To prevent bar lines, maybe limit the options to beer/wine at the bar and have a few other drinks passed?

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Thanks for the ideas! These are very helpful! I didn't even think about the group/family shots! I'm going to ask my family members if they will feel comfortable doing this. I recently watched a Facebook live wedding, they only had 10 people there, and they did group shots so maybe it just depends...

Have any ideas on how to seat guests during the ceremony?

View Quoted Comment Our wedding is going to be outside and there's a lot more space than we need, so we would probably just have the chairs spaced farther apart. Most people don't go to weddings alone, so it would probably be okay to have sets of 2 chairs together with spaces in between. I think that would look less awkward than having every chair separated. If you have benches/pews, you could either block off every other one, or put a little basket of hand sanitizer/flowers/programs/whatever every few spaces so it takes up a seat.

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Oh good ideas! I didn't even think about putting a cute basket between the seats. I was thinking about doing benches, so that would definitely fill in the space and not look so awkward. My venue has a big open field for the ceremony space as well so I am for sure going to suggest these ideas to our coordinator! Whew this makes me feel better haha. Thanks again!!!

Following. Thanks for this. We're getting married in September and Ahh! So much to think about and so much is unknown.

This article was just posted on Wedding Wire talking about some predictions regarding what the 'new normal' for weddings are going to look like once the restrictions are lifted... all of which were very practical and not huge changes! And with your wedding being a more intimate wedding, these changes would be even more minor. If you aren't interested in reading the full article, here are some of the things that would apply to what you were asking about. Here is the linked article just in case others want a look at it: https://www.weddingwire.com/wedding-ideas/weddings-after-covid?utm_medium=email&utm_content=c&utm_source=exacttarget&utm_campaign=weekly-newsletter

With ceremony seating, I've seen suggestions for having a few chairs set up for the guests who are unable to stand for a prolonged period of time but have the ceremony be a standing ceremony where everyone is up on their feet. That way, guests can choose how far apart they wish to be without having to move chairs around. I think the benches idea you mentioned would also be great if you don't like the idea of the standing ceremony.

For the reception, there's been talks about plated meals rather than buffet or family-style serving. Family-style serving is kind of a no-go. The buffet option is still doable if there is a way to have separate stations and one staff/chef at each, because that would allow more supervision for keeping things more sanitary. Depends on budgeting and the feel of the wedding! Plated is more formal, buffet is more casual.

For seating at the reception, doing various table sizes and seating according to households rather than relationships is another projected trend. Having separate tables big enough to seat just three people, to five people, to ten people who live in the same household would solve spacing issues.

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Thank you Anna! This article is perfect!! It answers all my questions and gives me more hope and optimism that a wedding CAN still happen after restrictions are lifted!!!