How To Plan For Your Wedding Guests’ Comfort Given COVID

When you think about your wedding, what do you care about? What’s important to you?

There might be lots of things you care about or only a few. But, I would bet your guests are one of the things you care about.

Perhaps it’s what you care about most.

When I talk to couples about what’s important, taking care of their guests and making sure they have a good time is something I hear all the time.

Because it’s important!

But taking care of your guests goes beyond things like having enough alcohol or comfortable seating.

It now also means taking into account your wedding guests’ comfort when it comes to COVID.

Because as happy as we all are that the state of the world and the situation is better, it’s still not over.

COVID is still here. There are variants popping up, not everyone is vaccinated and people are still getting sick.

So we still need to be cautious.

But, perhaps more importantly we need to be respectful and conscientious of how your wedding guests feel about it.

Because everyone’s comfort level is different. And every guest’s situation is different.

And you want your guests to feel comfortable at your wedding.

So, how do you make sure your guests feel comfortable at your wedding?

It starts first with communication.

You want to give your guests the information they need in order to make a decision about attending your wedding.

And in order to make that decision, they need information on what will be happening at your wedding and what you’re planning.

Which means you need to make some planning decisions before you can communicate to your guests.

And these planning decisions are important because they will affect not only the vendors you choose, but how the wedding will flow.

So, making the right decisions (like always) is important.

Now your planning decisions for your wedding guest’s comfort given COVID, will revolve around 4 main things:

1) Your venue

Is your venue going to be outdoors? Indoors? Or both?

If indoors, what’s the airflow like? And how long will your wedding be?

2) Masks and social distancing (if any)

Are you going to require/request that your unvaccinated guests wear masks? What about your vendors?

Do you plan on spacing people or grouping by family?

3) How food and beverage is being handled

Are you going to do a plated meal? A served buffet? Individual sized items?

Are you passing and serving drinks vs. self serve?

4) Vaccinations and testing

Are you requesting that all guests be vaccinated in order to attend? Or to have a negative test beforehand?

What about your vendors?

Your answers to these questions will be your planning decisions.

Now there are additional questions that may stem from these initial ones, but use these as a starting point to think about and make a decision.

Then once you’ve made those decisions you can share that information with your guests.

And the more comfort driven your decisions, the higher likelihood your guests will feel comfortable attending.

Now it’s important you know that there are some additional planning decisions you’ll need to make and subsequently communicate to your guests who are attending.

For example, if you’re providing (or thinking of providing) shuttles. Or what the situation is with any other events you’re planning.

And don’t forget about planning for any day of items too, like comfort indicators, creative dance floors or alternative entertainment. You may not need these, but you might just depending on your wedding and your wedding guests.

When in doubt, take a look at the situation from different perspectives and see what someone might need to feel comfortable (if anything).

And then you can use that to help you make a decision.

And of course, we can help! There has never been a better time to have a personal wedding advisor and have a professional walk you through the process.

Become a Passport to Joy member today!