Weddings in 2021
There is continued weight to the second year of an otherwise light-hearted wedding season. We hate it for you, but we continue to see bright and happy futures for all the couples that we serve. But, we do see you. We see brides soldier on into yet another unanticipated year of pivoting, rescheduling, and uncertainty. We feel your anxiety and we have anticipated your questions. If we don’t answer them all, we’d love to see questions in our comments section of the blog.
- Some couples are completely cancelling.
- Some couples are postponing (some for the second time around).
- Some are holding out hope that Q2 will turn around.
There’s a lot of pressure on Fall 2021.
Some are pushing nuptials to 2022, which may get filled up because of last year’s cancellations and this year’s delayed weddings.
Couples that have scheduled for late July through the end of the year remain hopeful, and ABC Consulting stay hopeful with them! Our friends and clients who see light at the end of the tunnel of vaccines and COVID-19 may want to move quickly and secure your dates.
- One suggestion to consider right now: a weekday wedding! Why? Because you’ll have less booking issues with vendors that have moved wedding dates and cancelled wedding dates and have every weekend booked through the end of 2022. You’ll get your first-choice venue, in your first-choice month. And this strategy will help you rebook, as trying to switch an entire vendor team is a huge hassle – but not for a weekday!
- Another suggestion is to book a Sunday brunch wedding.
- Or another booking suggestion is to consider normally-unpopular weekends (Mother’s Day, Easter, or Fourth of July).
Wedding-planning is stressful enough, but in the last year you’ve navigated it with restrictions and closures, risk assessment, safety protocols, and the brand new etiquette of postponing and uninviting.
In September of 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci recommended that couples consider pushing back their weddings to 2022, but we all hoped that with the vaccines; Biden’s announcement that all adult Americans will be vaccinated by May 2021; and new guidance that fully vaccinated people will be able to gather indoors—couples are now wondering: Will a “normal” wedding be possible in 2021? Here are the facts:
- Small weddings are allowed in Virginia, this summer, as the state starts to ease restrictions from the coronavirus shutdown.
- All private bookings are limited to 50 people indoors and 100 people outdoors in accordance with section I, subsection B, paragraph 1.
- Your reception can be held at a restaurant or a hotel ballroom or another kind of venue, as long as the venue has a liquor license or you obtain a one-day banquet license. The venue must follow the social distancing and safety rules for restaurants (currently, everyone must wear a mask unless they are seated).
- Wedding guests, if vaccinated, can visit, unmasked and without social distancing, with other guests who are vaccinated.
- Vaccinated guests can gather in “small groups, ” or with unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for COVID-19, indoors, without wearing masks or physical distancing.
- Vaccinated guests can refrain from quarantine and testing following known exposure to COVID-19 if asymptomatic.
- Vaccinated guests should wear masks, maintain physical distance, and practice other prevention measures when visiting with unvaccinated people from multiple households.
Travel has been challenging, for wedding planning purposes. Some states have imposed a 14-day quarantine for travel between states with a high coronavirus infection rate. For instance, if guests are coming from New York and Virginia has a positive test rate higher than 10% over a seven-day rolling average, New Yorkers will have to quarantine for 14 days upon re-entry.
How does the vaccine timeline affect weddings in 2021?
March 8, 2021: CDC Announces That “Fully Vaccinated” People Will Be Allowed to Gather Indoors. The announcement: “Fully vaccinated people will be allowed to gather indoors with other fully vaccinated people without wearing masks or social distancing,” according to the CDC. This means that wedding guests, if vaccinated, will be able to gather, unmasked, with others who are vaccinated. They will also be allowed to gather in “small groups” with those who are not yet vaccinated if they are at a “low risk” of serious illness for the virus. (For reference, what it means to be “fully vaccinated” is dependent on when an individual received the vaccine and also what vaccine they were given. For example, individuals are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after receiving the second shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines and two weeks after receiving the single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine).
March 2, 2021: “Every Adult in America Will Be Vaccinated by the End of May,” Biden Announces
With the approval of a third vaccine and a stepped-up process of production, Biden announced that the vaccine timeline has been pushed up from the original estimated date of July until May. “We’re now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May,” he said.
There continues to be light at the end of this year-long tunnel. And hope. And laughter. And…love. Be happy; don’t worry. And if you have licensing questions – please give us a call and we’ll be your bridge to all that is compliance and alcohol: 800.785.0161
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