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The New Measures In Holding A Wedding Today, Despite Uncertainties

People who look to settling for smaller wedding ceremonies may provide good examples going forward in this recovery period.

There may be weariness in holding an event today due to this on-going pandemic, but what are the steps to properly hold a wedding despite the uncertainties in the availabilities of many? Are the measures to be taken by the venue and its organisers safe enough to keep away the possible transmission of any COVID-related disease? Can the event keep the rate of infection per person below 1.0? Yet, the question to consider when holding an event today is not whether the rules are going to be followed, rather who are going to be in the confirmed-attending list? Restrictions may soon be lifted over time, yet any resurgence of COVID cases may also force people to change their minds at the last minute before the event. What is happening now is that most wedding couples have postponed their wedding date to 8 months or a year later –hoping that the international travel borders would have opened for most countries. However, there are still no signs of when this is going to happen. For those with majority of their guests from different countries, they can only wait until travelling internationally becomes convenient again. For those who can actually rescale their list of attendees to fit a smaller wedding event, they should look out for the following:


1.     The venue is outdoor and having good ventilation at common areas

2.     The venue's staff and their operation methods reflect good new norm habits

3.     The organisers are having enough personnel to watch over the attendees


Since everyone knows that it is a must for all event attendees to be fully vaccinated for at least 2 weeks, the cautions to be made in this article are more of the unspecified measures to be taken; even if there happened to be anyone infected by COVID lingering around the event, the potential spread is well-contained and that all event attendees are still kept within a safe environment.


Hence, in the first pointer, it is mandatory to hold the wedding ceremony or wedding reception at an outdoor venue as open-air provides the safety of ventilation and allows for crowd to be well spread out. It is also important to stress that the event layout setup is planned to avoid easy-clustering of people. Event planners may already have their solutions to this. However, just make sure that they present a good elaboration on how they actually plan the layout to avoid clusters, especially in common areas like the washrooms, walk-ways and cocktail (guests arrival) areas. On top of these, it is also important that the event planners also provide personnel to adequately keep all guests reminded of their social distancing and masks-on rules. –which brings to the pointers 2 and 3, i.e. how those venues' on-duty personnel perform their work, and are there anyone overseeing the safety protocols? These are the things to watch out for before wedding couples decide on the venue for their wedding; observe the way the venue's staff behave by having a short walkaround at the venue to see it first-hand before deciding on the environment in which one's beloved friends and family are to be jeopardised. Are these workers adhering to the new norm? And also, whether or not there are enough personnel to remind to correct when one's behaviour went out of order; not on how loud they laugh or sing, but rather are they all covered up properly in their facemasks during interactions, and properly sanitised upon engaging with commonly used handles. This is similar to primary and secondary schools in having recess monitors or prefects to watch over the students to properly line up before buying food; containing a crowd in an orderly manner.


A gentle reminder every now and then does tune everyone into behaving accordingly to the new norm.


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Subsequently, in going further a few steps of safety precautions, 1: event planners or wedding couples can make sure effective facemasks are worn by everyone at the event by providing them with non-fancy facemasks but highly recommended ones by the pandemic health officials, and 2: event planners or wedding couples could address their guests via their invitation (e-)cards to avoid going to another party or friends' meetings 10-14 days before attending the wedding event. This is to reduce the rate of infection just in case a breakout were to happen at the wedding. Although there can be no such strict order to be made upon everyone, it is everyone's responsibility in our route to recovering from this pandemic. Yet, we cannot take for granted that everyone knows well of how to behave in the new norm. Therefore, a gentle reminder every now and then does tune everyone into behaving accordingly to the new norm.


Conclusion, holding a wedding ceremony in the new norm today may seem to be taking away the fun due to the safety protocols and frequent reminders but it will not take away the meaning of a marriage and the celebration of love. The joy of seeing one's family and dearest friends together in an occasion is still worth all the trouble one has to put through because in having their presence during one's life's significant moment in time, hearing their voices in real-time, experiencing the music and speeches together, is never a repeatable occasion. If the next time an occasion were to happen again, everyone would have turned older and their stories would have been different. However, the safety measures in holding a wedding or any event today cannot be taken lightly.

WEDDINGS & EVENTS

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September 09, 2021, 6:45 PM EST

By Damien Chew