Social Distancing Reception

As far as people who can’t have dancing goes, that’s unfortunately a crazy mandate that my neighboring state has. Even if the brides want dancing, the venues will not allow it for fear of getting fined. I definitely commend you on trying to practice social distancing, But more so from what it sounds like I like how you’re not forcing your guests to sacrifice their comfort and enjoyment/good time for your wedding day either. The wedding I was supposed to attend this year has been postponed to next year, but if I was supposed to attend a wedding this year, I would definitely go to a wedding that was more relaxed and laid-back like yours as opposed to some of the more stricter compliance rules that some brides have been implementing even though there’s no state mandates where they live. You can have people wearing masks all day, but half of the time people don’t even wear masks the proper way it’s usually below their nose. Also, people have to take their masks off to eat and they’re being served food by strangers. If that doesn’t bother people, then I don’t see how walking around outside or keeping a safe distance without a mask would bother them. Like you said, we’re all adults, and we all know how to properly mingle and dance for the most part. I think your wedding sounds like it’s going to be a great time from a guest perspective.

View Quoted Comment Yes I wore a mask in the mall for awhile and was so uncomfortable! I got hot plus I wear glasses so they kept getting foggy! I told myself that I don't want to require people to wear masks. It should be optional because of what you just mentioned due to comfortability. We are in Florida but the area our wedding is in is a very small town in North Florida wear masks aren't required & cases are low.


I didn't know some states banned dancing .. that's crazy! I just don't want anything to feel awkward. I thought about the wristband idea but we haven't decided if we want to do that or not. I just want people to take precaution as they would anywhere else without it being awkward. I appreciate your comment and it does make me feel a bit more comfortable and confident about how we're going about things! Thank you!

We had 26 people. Similar to what you said, we had people sitting with family or with a smaller group so they could space out at the table. We did let people serve themselves, but had plenty of hand sanitizer to use before and after handling serving spoons. We asked people to wear masks when not eating/drinking and when less than 6 feet from others. However, like you said, they’re adults, and people naturally mingled only with people they’d already been interacting with, and kept distance between themselves. No one had an issue wearing a mask-everyone wanted to support us and whatever restrictions we chose to enforce.

We did hug guests and took group photos together-just tried our best not to breathe on each other-ha! And again, lots of hand sanitizer.

We did not do dancing. I asked the people I knew that would actually dance, and several said they would not participate in dancing due to COVID, and everyone said they wouldn’t miss it if we didn’t have it.
We’re two weeks out today, and no one has gotten sick yet! So hopefully since that’s the average incubation time, we’re in the clear! *knock on wood*

Congrats on your wedding next Sunday!!! Ours is next Saturday!!


We have 50 people and are doing precautions with less people and each table, tables spread out more, and food being served by a server wearing a mask. Even cocktail hour guests are served appetizers individual boxes. Our ceremony is outside.
We will have dancing. If anyone is uncomfortable they don’t have to dance, and those that want to know they made the choice.
I agree they are adults and can make their own choice on mingling and dancing! Also they can decide is and when to wear mask, we are not going to helicopter that.

View Quoted Comment Yours sounds similar to mine! Congratulations!! I hope everything goes well! I would've done a wedding outside but temperature has been like 90 degrees here!

View Quoted Comment Haha sounds good! It's good to know everything went well and you didn't have any outbreaks! How far did your guests travel for your wedding?

View Quoted Comment Most were local. My brother and his wife were out of state, as well as my two MOHs. I made it super clear to them that if they were not comfortable traveling, I completely understood, but they all decided to come.

View Quoted Comment Our date is next month in August and we’re in Colorado. I just confirmed with our venue and they are not permitting any dancing at all including our significant ones. Our coordinator said that these rules could change by next month. We were planning originally to have 45 people max but I’m sure now we will have half that or less. They won’t even let us have board games at the tables. I’m thinking that most everyone will just talk amongst each other though. We will be having a seating arrangement by household or social circle and the tables will be spaced apart. We will also have a plated dinner instead of a buffet. Masks are optional right now in our event space but the employees will be wearing them. We almost have our DJ paid off and aren’t sure if we should keep them or not. What did you do instead? Did you still have a DJ play music in the background? Was there any other games that you did?

View Quoted Comment I thought I replied, but now it’s not showing up. Sorry if it double posts!


We did not have a DJ-we didn’t have one in the first place, we were just going to have a friend who does sound stuff be in charge and use a playlist we made. He wasn’t there due to COVID, so we just still rented a sound system as planned and played our playlist from my computer as background music. We did have board games available-but nobody played them, so don’t worry about not being able to do that. Things like that often go untouched unless you have somebody get it started. People mostly just talked amongst themselves. We still did toasts, and with a smaller group, we felt comfortable opening it up for open mic, so that honestly was a large chunk of our reception. Reception was pretty short though. Dinner was at 7, we were cleaned up by 9:45. We had it at my parents house though, so it’s not like we were paying and trying to get the most of our money. It also started raining and was super cold, so we were ready to wrap it up, hahaha.
You could do the shoe game, or a Kahoot with questions about you guys... just throwing out some ideas. One thing about masks-I at first was very very against having masks in pictures, so I was really torn about having people wear them. I eventually decided though, that we did want people wearing them. The first time I looked through my pictures, I noticed them, but after that, they just kind of blend in. Totally worth it to have some masks in pictures to allow for the safety of our guests.
Good luck!!

View Quoted Comment Ah, I see. I’m still hoping for toasts because I think that would be nice. Thank you for the ideas!