pa Brides...planning weddings in the next few weeks or months and Governor Wolf’s new restriction

I was just starting to relax and now I’m hopeless again. I was just saying to my fiancé these final few months should be so exciting and it’s not at all!

View Quoted Comment I know, it’s so stressful. I already had to postpone my wedding from May to September and now I am thinking I might need to do it again. This is so crazy. I really hope these restrictions are only for a few weeks but who knows.

I really wish they would have given a loose timeline of how long this will last...also not fair to counties that are doing ok...

View Quoted Comment I know, we were county specific back a few months ago. They didn’t put a timeline, my fiancé thinks it’s a few weeks but I am not so sure. He definitely didn’t say indefinitely like the mask ruling but who knows.

I just heard on my local news Wolf plans to lift the restrictions "as soon as possible".... so not helpful. i'm not sure what to do anymore. i have a sept wedding so i need to send invites early august. i still have to order them from zazzle and right now they would arrive july 30....at this point, i jut need to accept that i will be wasting money on stuff like this....

Unfortunately, I think the best answer anyone can give as to when these restrictions are lifted is "when the case numbers begin to stabilize/trend downwards once again" and that all depends on people's behavior.

We are 70 days out from my FSIL's wedding, they originally had a guest list of 150 and were fine under previous guidelines, though obviously social distancing and some other restrictions needed to be in place. As little as a couple days ago we were full-steam ahead planning to go ahead with the original venue, but now they are going to do a micro-wedding for just immediate family (<20) on their original date and are planning for an anniversary reception next September with the original venue. There is of course the possibility that restrictions will be relaxed prior to the original date, but with everything constantly shifting it was driving them crazy to never know exactly what to plan for. It stinks because having the reception next year is far from the ideal scenario for this particular couple but what else can they do?

View Quoted Comment Ughh your FSIL is in the same boat with the rest of us. It’s the most stressful thing we have had to deal with, fearing the unknown. She needs to do what is best for her and not worry about what other people think or feel about it. My Wedding is scheduled for 9/25/2020 in PA and I am trying to find out if my venue will adapt to the new regulations and pop a tent and let me have the wedding outside. I don’t see why they can’t do it since my ceremony is already outside. I just hope they can or I will need to think about doing it at a different spot and losing money we put down. I am older and want to start a family and I don’t want to put my life on hold any longer this has already been a long stressful process.

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So sorry, you and she are actually date twins! I hope sincerely that you're able to do a tent at the current venue, that seems like a reasonable compromise! My heart goes out to everyone who is struggling with the decisions - it's really unprecedented and it comes down to making the right decision for your own circumstances. I promised FSIL that we'll celebrate just as hard next year, even if they're already technically married!

View Quoted Comment I truly hope her day is as special as she was hoping and I hope we both can have it happen as we plan!

I sincerely feel your pain. My wedding is scheduled for 8/28/2020 with a little over a month to go when this new order is issued. We already were having a small wedding to begin with for approximately 50 people. Now we are stressed and struggling to figure out what is best. Our venue is not willing to accommodate and pitch a tent outdoors even though out ceremony and cocktail hour are outdoors!! We were given the option to just have the ceremony and cocktail hour outside and move the reception to a later date, move the wedding date completely, or cancel and lose 25% of our deposit. My FH wants to wait a few weeks to see if the restrictions are lifted, but I also want to give guests enough notice if we do decide to make any changes. We already paid for the marriage license and we will be losing out on money paid for some things that were bought for the wedding that have specific dates on them as well. We want to at least get married no matter what on our original date even if everyone can't be there, but I'm also worried that if we push back the reception it's just going to be postponed again. I've never felt so stressed in my life 😩

View Quoted Comment I am so sorry girl that is terrible. Could you do all you could at the venue and cut the loss of the reception and maybe do it somewhere else outdoors at a house or something? I am with you and I feel like I don’t want to postpone again, I can’t handle the stress. If my venue won’t pitch a tent to have an outside wedding I might just pull out completely and try to get some money back or cut my losses. I did find a venue that does outside weddings and has around my wedding dates available but that’s more money. I am waiting to hear from my venue and make my decision from there. Who is to say next year will be any better. Things keep changing and I am so over it. I hope things can still happen for you!

View Quoted Comment Unfortunately our contract was for both the ceremony and reception so we would still lose around $1000 at least even if we just did the ceremony and cocktail hour because we are technically breaking part of the contract which I think is totally unfair. That's why we were considering just moving the reception and doing the rest on our original date. I understand times are hard for everyone, but that's still a lot of money for us to lose. We will be together 11 years next month and we want to just move onto the next step in our life. I guess we can technically still have a small reception now with immediate family and just get back the difference due to the cut in guests. I just feel like it's a bit foolish to have a 5 hour reception with 20-25 people, but at least we wouldn't lose money. These technicalities are frustrating. That and then I think well what if the weather is bad and I end up not being able to have the ceremony outdoors or things get worse and they shutdown again? I know it's thinking negative, but my wedding planning experience has mostly been negative due to Covid instead of a positive one.

View Quoted Comment I know these are valid points! This experience has not been the joyful happy ones that they should. I really hope you have beautiful weather and are able to figure it out. There is a FB site that may be of help, there are a ton of brides going through the same thing and everyone has been soooo helpful. It’s called Wedding Disaster Support: Covid-19!

Same boat here!! August wedding and the sudden regulations were... well no words for it!! The stress is so unbelievable that I’m losing weight like crazy (good but definitely not the healthy way). Tent rental companies here I come!! Invitations already went out and I’m so close to having this all finished that I just want to cross the goal line already. Families already made plans to come so I must find a solution. Love to you all ❤️ May God bless us with good weather and all venues allow beautiful white tents!!!!

Girl I feel you on this. When my county went green on the 26th of June I was like thank god we are good to go! And then this lol. We are 9/4/20 original date. My venue has an indoor part and an outdoor part. The reception area is in the outdoor part and there are two dancing areas (one indoor and one outdoor aka tent) luckily enough for me. People are still going to be allowed inside for the bathrooms (obviously) and then we will have the guest book/ family photos inside also. It’s literally insane. I just wanna be married! We all deserve a medal.

View Quoted Comment Omg I know! We are still going forward with our 9/25/2020 date. My venue is typically an indoor venue but has been so great and accommodating and is either setting us up in the beautiful courtyard or under a tent if it rains. Now if only the gorvernor doesn’t make more restrictions we will be ok!!!!

View Quoted Comment Praying you have good weather!

I just heard from my venue today they stated the governor made an unannounced change on August 18th indoor events is now 25% capacity and not 25 people it’s on his website.