A guest list of 50, then 10, and back to 25

By Hanna Wickes

When was your wedding?

Our wedding was on June 14th, and yes, it was our original date.

We originally planned on holding it in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. We always planned on a small wedding, just family and a few close friends. Nothing larger than 50 people.

How did the pandemic affect things?

As soon as the shutdown was announced we realized that we were going to have to adjust. We took it very seriously because like most couples getting married, we have a lot of older relatives and we didn’t want to put them at risk. We were faced with a bell curve of potential risk. Invite too few people and we would upset most of the family; invite too many and increase the risk of someone coming away sick. Fortunately for us, the governor picked the number so we didn’t have to...

Since our original venue was in a national park they were governed by federal shutdown guidelines. We were also forced to cut our guest list in half.

We ended up having 25 attendees. The limit on outdoor gatherings was changing on a near biweekly basis. We went from a guest list of 50, down to 10, then back up to 25 in the last month before the wedding. Fortunately for us, we put off mailing the invitations until the last minute. The Governor raised the limit to 100 a few days before the wedding, but by then the invitations were mailed, food was ordered, and the small venue secured; it was too late to try to accommodate additional invitees while still attempting to socially distance.

We didn’t have bridesmaids or groomsmen in the traditional sense. We each invited a friend and our siblings to stand next to us.

We kept it purposefully small to encourage social distancing. We had the food packaged in a way that allowed amilies to dine as family units.

The biggest challenge was (and continues to be) consoling the family we weren’t able to invite. We hope that once this pandemic is over we can have a proper family gathering to celebrate our wedding with everyone we had intended on inviting.

How was your wedding day?

The day turned out absolutely perfect. We wanted a small wedding all along, and though it was smaller than expected, it allowed us to have personal time with each guest.

Lessons learned?

Sometimes, procrastination isn’t a bad thing.