Larger Venues

Before the pandemic, people picked venues to fit their guest list. If they only wanted to host 50 guests, they’d select a smaller, more intimate venue. Now, people are picking venues where, no matter how small or large their guest list, there's much more room for everyone. Once you know how many people you’re inviting, find your venue — and pick one that either has some outdoor space (so people can distance outdoors if they’d like) or one that is big enough for people to spread out.

Spaced Out Seating

As you begin to map out your venue space, get creative with how you design your seating arrangements. To help guests feel comfortable and relaxed at your wedding, consider grouping together people who are traveling in for your wedding, are family members, or who know each other. Keeping people seated in mini pods will make people feel at ease so they can enjoy themselves. Rather than including larger tables that fit 8-12 people, consider going with smaller, more spread out layouts and tables that sit 5-8.

Welcome Kits

One way to make your guests feel good at your wedding is to offer them a few key items when they arrive. To help them feel comfortable around a larger group of people than they might have been around for the past year, offer them hand sanitizer and masks. You can place a basket of these items at the entrance of your wedding, so guests can grab what they’d like before they enter your celebration.

Offer a Virtual Component

As states open up even more and allow weddings to have larger guest lists, some of your loved ones still might feel uncomfortable attending in person. If you and your partner are okay with it, offer a virtual component to your wedding that allows friends and family to feel involved on your special day, but from the safety of their own homes. Consider planning a livestream for your ceremony, or even a part of your reception.

Split Your Guest List

If you want to keep your ceremony intimate, or if you’d like your ceremony to be in a smaller venue, create a guest list of people you want to invite to your ceremony and another (larger) guest list for those you want to invite to your reception. Those who aren’t invited to the ceremony can watch it virtually, if you’d like. This will allow close family and friends to be there in person, while remaining socially distant, so they can feel comfortable during your special moment.

Set Clear Rules

Before your wedding takes place, sit down with your fiance and family to determine what kind of safety protocols and rules you want to put in place. Do you want to ask everyone to wear masks when they aren’t seated at their table? Do you want all of your guests to take a COVID test before the wedding or confirm that they've been vaccinated?

Once you have your set of guest requirements, put them in written form and either send them out with your invitations, post them on your wedding website, or share them with your guests over email.

Update Guests Frequently

Since news surrounding the pandemic and local rules around events tend to change often, let your guests know that you’ll be in contact with any new requirements as things evolve.

It can be a headache to send updates in the mail, so decide on a digital way to communicate any real-time updates to your guests — especially during the weeks leading up to your big day. Emailing or using a group text messaging service will help you inform your guests in an easy and stress-free way.