How will weddings change while this pandemic is around? The new normal is here to stay, for a while at least. Thank you COVID-19. I must admit, there are many times when I have to look at my phone to remind myself what day it is. But there is a real sense this week that things are slowly changing. Venues are starting to bring back their personnel and communication is starting to flow a bit more. There is hope.
But there’s no telling how long it will take for things to get back to normal. And with only 3 steps included in the government’s recently released framework to a Covidsafe Australia, we are all guessing at what will happen with events over 100 guests.
In the meantime, to maintain some shred of sanity, we still need to get on with managing our forward bookings. Weddings involve more contingency planning now than we’ve ever known. The wedding landscape will significantly change for a long time to come. Frankly, some of these changes will be very much for the better.
Guests & Contact Tracing
While it’s a given that couples are likely to have the postal addresses of their guests, we are now preparing to collect the telephone numbers of those guests as well to make contact tracing painless when we receive the guest RSVP. We are also encouraging our couples to promote the use of the COVIDSafe app in their wedding messaging to help with any sort of early detection.
Catering
From scrapping things like dessert stations, family-style shared plates and cheese platters. These concepts will probably be a thing of the past. Individually plated meals are a more sensible and hygienic option and assumedly would be rolled out for the time being. Changes like this though can be expensive, and who wears the cost if something like this happens is really the problem.
These culinary masterpieces keep rolling out the door. Image I Love Wednesdays.
A sophisticated grazing table waiting for Megan & Jeff’s guests at Wylie’s Bath. Image Folk + Follow
Space / 4 Square Metre Rule
One guest per 4 square metres may be one rule that could stay in play for a while when venues re-open. How this would impact existing forward bookings that don’t comply would be worrying – especially more for the restaurant style receptions. If this is the case, finding alternate venues or culling your guest list may be the only way. Floor plans and seating could come under the microscope too to ensure that dinner tables aren’t overcrowded. Perhaps it could be a case of seating 8 guests at your 1.8m table instead of 10. And of course, this will mean that you’ll need more tables, more space, more flowers for that table and so on.
Gunners Barracks is ready for Tamiko and Daniel. Image James Day Photography.
Hygiene
It’s hard to imagine that those venues that run a lunch and dinner event will be able to do any sort of serious deep cleaning without either staffing up or increasing the amount of time between events. It will be a fine balance to see how venues will manage staffing costs here and how they will affect future events.
Staff
Recognising that our industry relies so heavily on our international student population who substantially fill our venues with waitstaff, the question is how has this changed since travel shutdowns? Just how much of that population still reside in Australia? With local unemployment going up, you could assume that it wouldn’t be too make up the difference here. However, whether we have enough skilled and willing staff, or whether we’ll end up with a shortage which may drive up demand will be an interesting watch.
Progressive wedding formats
With our older population at risk, it’s really adding pressure now to couples to decide how to cleverly structure or restructure their events to involve everyone. I expect we’ll see more trying to rework the “traditional” wedding event format. Perhaps we’ll see more staggered celebrations over a period of time so that wedding formalities can be celebrated in intimate groups, sort of like a progressive dinner.
You may now kiss the bride – Megan & Jeff at Wylie’s Bath. Image Folk + Follow
Outdoor weddings
Outdoor weddings are likely to become more of a thing, especially if the group is large. Always a difficult one to rely on the weather without going to great expense planning a wet weather back up.
Clark Island, where we moved in and installed this wedding reception on a glorious sunshine day. Mammoth effort. Image courtesy Studio Something Photography.
Well, many of us are still planning for the worst, but hoping for the best. So if you’re asking yourself – how will weddings change post-pandemic? Well it might be a while until we see a jam-packed dance floor, but couples are so clever and innovative. If anything, this job has taught me that there is a solution to every problem. I’m really looking forward to seeing how we will all be able to solve some of these challenges with a bit of creative flair.
