2021 weddings

I am February 2022 and I am still worried that we won't be able to have our wedding as planned! I was going to start sending Save the Dates in January 21 (we have some overseas guests) but now I am wondering whether to hold back on inviting people, after sharing the pain of people on here needing to 'uninvite' guests.

I think that if the restrictions are still in place by then, they will be so established that it will be almost impossible to postpone without a huge financial penalty, so we'd be going ahead with 10% of our guest list.

I love planning, and was probably just as excited about planning the wedding than the day itself (although I am most excited about actually being married!) but the uncertainty is sucking all the fun out of it.

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It could be - I can imagine couples designating 3 or 4 photographers each to try to up the guest numbers! But maybe it is just based on how long the people are likely to remain in the room.

As for church staff, it depends on the church. Our church was a non-conformist one (Baptist) and didn't have an in-house registrar, so we had to have one from the local registry office. But only one registrar is needed for a church wedding. Fortunately for us, the minister marrying us was a friend who would have been invited anyway, so we didn't 'lose' a guest space to him! In Church of England weddings, the person officiating also counts towards guest numbers, but other church staff/volunteers do not. Which I think is really odd, because if you are a regular attender at that church, chances are, some of your guests will also attend that church, so could presumably be labelled 'volunteers' and not included in the guest total!

The Gov have finally cleared it up as of today's updated marriage guidance. Says -

"15 This maximum number includes all those at the ceremony, including the couple, witnesses, and guests. Anyone working is not included as part of the limit on attendees."

So you can have 13 guests and yourselves

BUT the updated reception guidance says this ---

"Capacity at a wedding or civil partnership reception or celebration (including the couple, guests and third-party suppliers, but not venue staff or third-party catering staff) should be no more than 30"
But the 30 still includes any third-party suppliers, such as photographers or security.

I think the person who has written it has got it wrong and it should be 15 -- surely !

We are due to get married in March 2021 and this week's announcement made me so sad. We planned to go ahead with a 30 person wedding as we could just about fit our family in and bridesmaids/groomsmen and then do a bigger party later with everybody when we can and we don't want to put our life on hold while we wait to see if we can go ahead with our original plans (I personally believe that social distancing will be around for some time).

We're crossing our fingers they will raise the number of attendees again before our wedding (pretty sure it was reduced based on zero evidence of weddings actually spreading the virus) but currently we plan on going ahead with what we can.

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I’m also getting married in Cyprus October 21. Paphos. Fingers crossed!!! Wedding planner seems very positive. Me on the other hand feel like it’s a roller coster planning experience!!! How are you finding it - luckily it’s us eloping but I will be so disappointed if we can’t go!!!

View quoted message Hi. I’m due to get married in Cyprus October 21. We were hoping to meet wedding planner too but that got scuppered by Covid. All our plans have been fine by phone email etc!!! Trying to remain optimistic but it’s difficult everything the news comes on seems to spoil the excitement!!! Let’s keep hoping all will come good and be blessed we are going to get married in a beautiful country soon!!!!