In the past year, many weddings have been cancelled, rescheduled, and postponed. As Ontario continues to ease restrictions, weddings are starting to happen again. It’s exciting, we’re excited, and we know you’re excited too! But you still probably have lots of questions. Do guests need to wear a mask? Can I give people a hug?
Rules and guidelines are constantly changing, but there are ways to be proactive while planning your COVID friendly wedding. If you’re wondering how to plan a COVID friendly wedding in Ontario in 2021, we’re here to help.
Have a Flexible Wedding Guest List
One of the biggest questions people have while planning a COVID friendly wedding is “How many people can I actually invite?” With Ontario’s COVID-19 guidelines constantly changing, this is a difficult question to answer when you want to plan your wedding months in advance.
You can be prepared for different capacity guidelines by creating a flexible wedding guest list. What does this mean exactly? Well, it’s quite simple actually. Create a 20 person guest list, a 50 person guest list, a 100 person guest list, etc. When it comes time to send out the wedding invites you can look at the most recent guidelines and decide which guest list to use.
Choosing Your COVID Friendly Wedding Venue
The flexible guest list mentioned above will also depend on where you plan on having your COVID friendly wedding. Celebrating your wedding outside is the safest option and will allow you to invite more guests, but you’ll also need to consider the weather. If you choose to have your COVID friendly wedding outside, you may want to rent a tent so that you’re protected from any unwanted heavy wind or rain.
While there are plenty of venues to choose from for both outdoor and indoor wedding celebrations, you may also choose to host the party yourself. Backyard weddings were extremely popular in 2020 and we’re seeing the same trend for 2021. Check out our blog Planning a Backyard Wedding or Micro-Wedding for more info.
No matter where you choose to have your COVID friendly wedding, you’ll want to make sure that you’re following the most up-to-date guidelines set out by Ontario so that you’re following all of the rules.
COVID Safety Measures to Consider
Planning your wedding can be exciting, hectic, and rewarding all at the same time. Among all of these sensations, don’t forget to consider additional safety measures while planning your COVID friendly wedding to keep you and your guests comfortable.
FOOD PRESENTATION: Your wedding menu can be presented in individual vessels or stylishly plated dinners, so only your hands are touching your food.
ON-SITE INSPECTION: Before the big day an on-site assessment can be conducted to look at layout options, food set up locations, lighting considerations, and more.
SEATING ARRANGEMENTS: Consider having socially distanced seating arrangements and/or limiting the number of guests at each table.
PPE & SANITIZATION: Hand sanitization stations and mandatory mask wearing are options you can think about for your COVID friendly wedding. You can also have pre-wedding COVID-19 rapid testing for your guests; with results in only 15 minutes, it’s a quick and efficient safety measure to consider.
Celebrate Your Wedding Virtually
Share the joy virtually by live streaming the big day to friends and family at home. Virtual weddings are safe, affordable, and best of all there’s no limit to how many people you can invite!
Encore’s new Virtual Catering application allows you to send elegantly packaged meals to each of your guests. With an incredibly intuitive user interface, your guests can pre-select their meal in less than 30 seconds and celebrate with you while having the full wedding experience from the comfort of their own homes.
Having a virtual COVID friendly wedding is definitely a new concept, but in today’s digital world, people are loving the idea of celebrating together virtually!
Wedding Planning in Advance
As restrictions continue to ease across Ontario, more and more people are getting excited to plan their wedding. But some people still prefer to wait a little bit longer and plan for a future date, maybe even into 2022 or 2023. There’s nothing wrong with that either! Planning your wedding a year or two in advance is totally normal and very common. If you have a date in mind and want to get things started, contact us today—we can’t wait to celebrate with you!
