Uninviting Guests

Title should be Uninviting* dumb phone

You can also add on to that that they can join you virtually through Zoom or google hangouts or whatever platform you choose so they can still be part of the celebration.

Can you Zoom the ceremony so that people still feel included? If so, I think that something like this would go over a little better.

"Due to social distancing guidelines, we will unfortunately have to reduce our wedding guest list to immediate family (and close friends???) only. We would love for you to still join in on our ceremony via Zoom/Skype/whatever. We hope to catch up and celebrate with each of you individually once it is safer."

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I was going to suggest this too. That is a great idea. I think people are much understanding since Corona is not going away any time soon. I like the option of a live streaming so they can watch it.

Yeah, that’s perfect. If I was a guest I would totally understand.

View Quoted Comment We did a zoom wedding in April, this is the drinking and dancing celebration

View Quoted Comment Well, I still stand by that they could drink and dance with you all from the safety and comfort of their own home. It’s like a multi-house house party! 😂 We’ve even considered things like this for my bridal and Bach parties, since my moh is determined to throw me them.
Hopefully you won’t have to cut the list and you should probably get a head count in the next few weeks before you have to make your final decision.

I think that's fine. covid has thrown a wrench into a lot of things and people are understanding of it [i hope]

This part, "If you still wish to celebrate with us newlyweds on another date, please reach out to us as we would love to," is confusing to me. I'd guess you mean, since we can no longer include you, we hope to get together with you personally as soon as circumstances allow. But, it kind of sounds like you're asking people if you should choose a new date that would be better for them. Also, would this message go to everyone or just the people who are no longer invited? If I received it, I might not be sure if I "made the cut" or not. Overall, I think the message needs to be more clear. I'd also probably offer the Zoom/virtual option. I think Caytlyn's working is more clear.

I'm so sorry! Good luck!

It's not bad, but I made a few edits that you can take our leave:
Dear XYZ,We regret to inform you that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made the difficult decision to limit the number of guests at our wedding reception. We are very sorry not to be able to include everyone that we were excited to spend the day with. We look forward to celebrating with you at some point in the future.With much love and sincere apologies, Mr. and Mrs. Maher

I took out the date so they don't have to be reminded of exactly what they're being excluded from (no judgment on excluding people btw, you just don't want to make them feel excluded).At the end, I made it more general. For people who just barely didn't make the cut, you should reach out to them individually or in small groups to have dinner or something later. For other people, you don't necessarily have to do this, but it would be nice to. It doesn't even have to be dinner, ur could just be a Zoom game night or something. Regardless of whether or not you care enough about them to see make plans with them, you shouldn't tell them they can't come to your party and give them a homework assignment (reaching out to you to set something up) in the same note.
I think the rest of the edits were just for grammar/etiquette/style, but I don't know you or your guests, so word it the way that feels best to you.

Dear XYZ,

Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, we are compelled to make the difficult decision to minimize our August 23rd wedding celebration. We are sincerely apologetic that we are unable to extend an invitation to everyone we initially invited and are truly sadden by this decision.

If you still wish to celebrate with us on another date, please reach out to us as we would love to hear from you. With sincere love and appreciation,

Mr. and Mrs. Maher

A while back, I found a website with a pretty good template for uninviting guests due to COVID (as well as templates for other scenarios). In case you're interested in the templates, here is the website: https://theeverylastdetail.com/coronavirus-wedding-postponement-email-templates-to-send-to-guests/


In any case, I think most people will be pretty understanding.

I would *hope* that most people would be understanding due to everything that's going on right now. I think finding a way to stream it would be a nice way to involve people. If anything, maybe create a private facebook group and facebook live it..? I created a private FB group to inform everyone that originally received a save the date so that we could quickly communicate to everyone.

If you could still schedule a quick video call for a virtual celebration with those guests it would be a nice offer! But I think everyone will be understanding.

Also depending on how many guests you'd need to contact, reaching out personally by phone to share the news would be a nice touch!