Wedding planning is full of exciting decisions! You're finally engaged and you're seeing the world through rose colored glasses. Love is everywhere and you cannot wait to get planning but just like life, every now and then it throws a wrench in your plans and you have to adjust. 2020 threw many wrenches. It affected every single person in some way including couples planning their weddings. There were many unknowns in the beginning of the pandemic. Some couples decided to postpone, some downsized, and some eloped. There was no correct answer on how to handle going through with a wedding during a pandemic but one thing that was for sure was that changes needed to be made to move forward. For those who did not want to postpone altogether, they had to make significant changes especially to their guest list. Most couples limited their list to immediate family only. In the beginning stages planning, putting together a guest list is one of the first things you do. It determines how large of a venue you'll need and your budget. The more people, the more mouths to feed with food and drinks. You also take in to consideration who might need a plus one and if coworkers should be invited as well. See, so many decisions!
So what do you do when you are still stuck in a pandemic and have to downsize? How do tell people that you can no longer accommodate them without them feeling uninvited? I spoke to bride, Jessica who, like many, had to downsize her wedding. She gives us some insight on how to tell guests that due to covid, they could not longer invite them while doing so with grace.
Jessica and Brian Miller opted for a minimony at the Catholic Church where guests were invited to wear masks and social distance. They had a sweet outdoor ceremony on the church grounds. Their stunning wedding photos were captured by San Luis Obispo wedding photographer, Cameron Ingalls. Following their ceremony, they moved the party over to San Luis Obispo wedding venue, Halter Ranch for an intimate candlelit reception including romantic floral design by Katie Noonan, delicious eats by catering company Field to Table, and music by DJ Malik Miko. Keep scrolling to see more from their 2020 wedding and the full vendor list at the bottom!
"We knew fairly early into the pandemic that having a 200 person wedding was not going to be possible. The real question in our heads were: Do we postpone everything a year and hope that we go back to 'normal'?Do we still get married this year? Is it safe enough to even have our parents there?"
"The stress of trying to outsmart a global pandemic and figuring out trying to keep our closest friends and family safe was high enough that we decided we ultimately did not want to continue to have to be in that position in 2021 if we rescheduled, so we decided to go all in with a very small group and make it feel like the wedding we originally imagined as much as possible."
"While we were 100% sad that not everyone could be there, it was honestly not hard to narrow down the guest list because there was no question in our minds that we needed to keep our total guest list as small as possible. We talked to most of our friends and family over the phone / zoom before we sent an official email."
"Like everyone else in 2020, we took a LOT of walks where we mapped out different options. We are super grateful that the option we went with was 'option b' vs. option c, d, e, f."
"Zoom was part of our lives well before the pandemic, so doing the wedding over zoom was a no-brainer and non-negotiable."
Top zoom tips:
- Dry run it - you won't regret it. Make sure you have the right settings BEFOREHAND.
- Have someone attending over zoom be the 'host' and the on-call tech support.
Leave A Comment