If you’re planning a wedding during the COVID-19 pandemic, you may be wondering what is legal and what is safe for your wedding. To get those answers, you might think your first step is to contact the venue or venues where you’re hosting your wedding.
You’re not wrong in this thinking but please proceed with caution. In my experience as a wedding planner, wedding venues rarely know the answers to these questions. This is not because they are stupid but because this is hard.
Why your wedding venue won’t know
The people (or most likely one single person) whom you’re corresponding with at a wedding venue is overwhelmed, understaffed, and completely not incentivized to tell you — a paying client — bad news. They may also fear reprisals if they tell you something like “We are requiring vaccination” or “Everyone must wear a mask.”
It’s because of this power dynamic that, before today, I strongly advised couples to not reach out to their venues to get answers to the questions “What is legal?” and “What is safe?”
I was afraid that doing so would be bad for the couple (they wouldn’t get the answers they needed) and also bad for the venue (I am also a wedding vendor and so I know all too vividly how completely exhausting these last two years have been for people in our line of work).
Why I think you should still ask your venue
Today, I’m changing my advice because it’s only January and already twice in 2022 I’ve encountered venues that are setting their own boundaries for hosting weddings and those boundaries exceed the legal mandates. One example: a venue that is considering requiring everyone on-site be vaccinated even though legally, the venue doesn’t have to ask this. Note that “everyone” here means wedding vendors, too.
Unfortunately, I’ve only learned about these boundaries because I asked. I’ve yet to meet a wedding venue that is proactively sharing their boundaries to their clients. (The only exception is a hotel that also does weddings; they’ve got a banner on the top of their website that says if you stay at the hotel overnight, you have to be vaccinated and you have to show proof.)
I wish wedding venues were proactively sharing their boundaries but I also wish everyone in my industry talked about COVID more. Because they don’t, I believe the entire wedding industry and particularly wedding venues are lagging behind restaurants, concert venues, stadiums, and entire cities — many of which have been more proactive about setting their boundaries and, importantly, communicating those boundaries to other people.
That said, nobody asked me and also, venues have their reasons. When I’ve asked what those reasons are, venues have told me some combination of “We don’t want to deal with it” or “We don’t have the staff to deal with it” or “We can’t risk losing more money.”
Unfortunately, while this approach is understandable, it has a very nasty consequence: A couple doesn’t know that their venue has its their own rules and so the couple proceeds with hiring vendors and inviting guests without setting certain expectations with those vendors and those guests such as “You need to be vaccinated” or “You will need to test.” Then, only later and only if it comes up, does a couple learn that actually, they’ve hired and invited people who can’t be at the venue per the venue’s rules.
Yikes.
How I think you should ask your venue
To help you facilitate this conversation, I made you this template. This is different from setting boundaries with your whole vendor team (here are free communication templates for that).
As you’ll see at the top of the template, I recommend you have this conversation no later than 60 days before your wedding unless you owe money sooner. If you don’t know when you owe people money, check your contracts.
Is it, of course, better to have this conversation with your venue before you sign a contract with them or before you sign contracts with other vendors? Of course it is. This is particularly true if you and your partner are not planning to set any health and safety protocols that exceed local laws.
That said, energy management is important and if you’re not hosting a wedding until, say, fall 2022, this conversation isn’t as urgent. A lot could/will change between now and then so I believe there’s less risk to wait as compared to folks hosting weddings sooner. Fall 2022 couples are also months out from sending invites and, if they’re hiring vendors, I hope they are setting expectations with them before they sign a contract (use these interview questions to help).
For couples hosting a wedding in spring or summer 2022, the timings move up because the wedding is sooner. So, consider this resource. Check your timings and your contracts. When you do check in with your venue (or really, any vendor), please follow my very best wedding planning advice: Be nice.
There is a good chance you are the first couple to ask the venue these questions and as such, they may feel attacked after two years of feeling attacked. As such, they may default to defensive language and behavior.
That’s not about you. It’s about COVID.
What to do with this information
Whatever you hear back from your venue(s), use that information to help create the COVID safety policy for your wedding. This is a tool you and your partner will use to figure out your own boundaries for the event that you two are hosting.
Is this fun? Is it sexy? Is it a really good time? No, it’s none of those things but if you want to have a wedding during a pandemic and if you want to have a wedding where people feel joy, then you need to do these things. Trust me. I have two years of proof as to why it’s worth it.