10 practical ideas to help social distancing at your wedding [post-COVID-19]

While the wedding celebration we once knew looks very different in the future, love must go on in a post-coronavirus society. So how can couples ensure the best social gathering while adhering to social distancing restrictions? Check out these practical ideas to help you and your guests social distance and get the most of your wedding celebration.

1. Offer facemasks for all guests (one look at Etsy will show you some super fun and creative ways to personalise these beyond the standard medical mask!).
2. Have lots of hand sanitiser stations as well as bottles and on reception tables.
3. Allow more space between ceremony chairs and offer socially-distanced standing room.
4. Allow more space between your reception tables and consider reducing the number of seated guests per table.
5. Change your catering style to choose alternate reception drop menus in place of shared platters and buffets. Offer individual boxed snacks for pre-dinner canapés. 
6. Following your first dance, swap the dance floor for some great after-dinner entertainment.
7. Consider live-streaming your ceremony for your guests that don’t feel comfortable attending your wedding but still want to be a part of your celebration.
8. In place of a physical guestbook, ask your guests to instead send you virtual messages of love. You can print them out and create your own guestbook.
9. Sanitise microphones between speakers.
10. Last but not least; ask your guests to not attend your wedding if they are sick in any way. It is also a good idea to ask your vendors for a backup plan in case they are sick and unable to attend. Considering that the average person gets more than a few colds per year, it is a very real possibility that someone linked with your celebration will be sick so best to have back up plans in place. 

Of course, you also have the option of completely change the format of your wedding. One of the biggest changes in weddings due to COVID-19 impacts has been a move to creative wedding formats such as elopements, shift weddings, multi-weddings and micro-weddings.

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