Over the past 26 years, we have worked with thousands of amazing couples across the world. Recently we have seen many couples spend a lot of time, money and energy trying to figure out whether or not to keep their wedding date. With the COVID-19 Pandemic at large now, we're seeing many more couples struggle with the steps on how to keep their wedding dates. We know wedding planning is tough; and now to deal with the Coronavirus and social distancing during your wedding weekend is difficult.

10 Tips for Couples Keeping their Wedding Dates.

This blog will help you with the following:

What steps to take to keep your wedding date
Things to consider before reaching out to your vendors and venues
What and how to communicate with everyone involved

Want more information or don't like to read, check out this video:

1) Government Regulations for Social Events

Check city and state websites to see when social events will resume and confirm your wedding date is in the safe period
Check weekly keep track of changes e-opening date changes or number of people allowed to attend

2) Contact Venue

Your Point of Contact may not be at your venue anymore due to furloughs or layoffs.
Find out who the new point of contact is to communicate with now.
Confirm they plan to be open on your wedding date.
Ask them if they have any changes on their side: guest count restrictions, timing restrictions for setup, event, and breakdown, will hotel rooms still be available for guests.
Ask for minimal staff to be at your event if there are guest count restrictions in place.

3) Contact Vendors

Confirm all vendors will still service your wedding date as planned.
If your vendor is not able to service your wedding, find a replacement vendor right away. If you need a DJ, contact us here.
If a vendor isn't available; book someone else right away. These blogs will help you find the following vendors: planner, decorator, photographer, videographer, makeup, and mehndi.
Ask for minimal staff from each vendor team.
Communicate changes that will affect vendors: i.e. no group photos allowed to be taken by photo and video teams, guest count change for food quantity to your caterer, table seating changes for less guests to your venue, and less linens and chairs needed from your decorator.

4) Communications with your Guests

Possible Guest Count Changes. Make a prioritized list of attendees of the following amounts: 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, etc. - keep going up till you reach your max guest count.
Confirm if the guests still plan on attending: Get an updated RSVP from guests.
Prepare a way to be able to let some guests know they're uninvited. Remember to keep it tasteful and show remorse they cant attend physically. Tip # 7 will help you with this.

5) Event Changes

Take out any part of the event you don't think is necessary.
Reduce overall number of hours throughout the wedding weekend.
Invite different group of guests on different days (or parts) of your wedding weekend to cover your guest count.
Don't visit all of the tables during dinner time.
Limit group pictures.
Limit number of speeches.

6) Food Safety

Ask about food handling procedure update from the venue and caterer.
Consider asking venue and caterer to switch over to formal disposable plates, utensils, cups, bottle and can products.
Make sure servers are wearing sanitary gloves and masks.
Change the dinner buffet to plated style dinner.

7) Include Guests in your wedding that aren’t able to attend

Live Stream all of your major events so loved ones can still be a part of it. Talk to your video team and your point of contact at your venue about doing this (high speed wired internet is best).
Make sure all guests use your hashtags when posting on social media so everyone not attending can stay connected. If you don’t have a hashtag, check out this blog to get your Indian wedding hashtag.
Call or video chat briefly before or after a major part of your wedding. This is for extremely close family or friends, not everyone that you originally invited.
Assign a family member or friend to share photos, videos and updates directly with the people they know that are not attending.
Create a separate Instagram handle for your wedding and have your wedding party and the couple getting married share pictures, videos and personal messages to people who can’t attend.
Create a Facebook group and assign someone to share photos and videos with your family during the wedding weekend.
Create a iMessage/GroupMe/Whatsapp group with close family and friends including both those who are able to attend and those who aren’t able to attend so they can instantly see photos and videos taken by loved ones.
For iPhone users only, create a shared iCloud album with your pictures and videos and share the album with family and friends who also have iPhones. Multiple people can share this with people unable to attend.

8) Sanitary Precautions

Have masks available for each guest at each event.
Have big bottles of hand sanitizers in all common areas.
Have normal size bottles of hand sanitizers at each table during dinner.
Include a small bottle of hand sanitizer in a welcome bag.

9) Post Wedding Activities

Open all gifts and envelopes with gloves and a mask on. Throw all cards, bags and boxes away immediately after opening.
Deposit checks electronically if possible.
Postpone your honeymoon, if possible. If not, go somewhere close and safe.
Send electronic thank you cards.

10) Stay happy and be ready to celebrate

Its' still your wedding and there is a lot of excitement. As vendors we cant wait to help make your wedding memorable. If you need a DJ that will make it unforgettable, contact us here.
We know it's tough to stay positive after making so many adjustments to your favorite weekend of the year. Remember to stay happy with your significant other and tell your family to be happy as well.
Let's keep the spirits up. Do a fun shoot with your significant other holding masks, gloves, precautionary wear and sanitizers to remember this time. Watch the video above to get some ideas on this.

A wedding is the happiest moment in your life and you should have vendors that you love. We understand how tough it may be to adjust your dream wedding weekend. We want to let you know you're not alone, and together we can all get through this. Over our 26 years of bringing joy to couples, the DJ Riz Entertainment team has been a part of thousands of couples dream wedding weekends. We look forward to many more couples. A big shoutout to our frontline workers. Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacies you guys are the true superheroes.

If you liked the 10 Tips for Couples Keeping their Wedding Dates, check out all our blogs focused on Indian Wedding Tips.

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