By now everyone should be aware of covid unless they have been living in a cave somewhere in the middle of Cappadocia. When potential brides call us they want to know what are other brides doing. After collaborating with some of the top wedding vendors in Florida, we have found that most couples fall into three categories.
- Cancel the wedding or do it online
- Postpone the wedding for a future date in 2021
- Scale down the size and scope of the wedding
Before reading on any further, let us preface by saying there is no right or wrong answer. This article will highlight some of the practical or analytical insights from real wedding experience.
The major assumptions we are talking about for 2021 & beyond.
- There will be successful vaccine in 2021
- The rollout of the vaccine will be slow, not everyone will get.
- Travel Restrictions will have somewhat eased, but still hard to move around
- Financial loss to the small business sector will still continue into 2021
- Financial loss to declining home values through 2021
Cancelling the Wedding
Few couples have ditched the whole idea of in-person to a zoom wedding. This is the most extreme case, we aren’t in business for DIY or Zoom. Let’s move on.
Postponing the Wedding
Most couples have resorted to this option when they want to reach a specific guest count or dream about having the big fat Indian wedding, 300 is average for South Asian weddings. It would be prudent to expect some reduction in guest attendance due to a myriad of reasons including loss of wealth and travel restrictions from other countries.
So you probably are thinking, I’m going to have everyone RSVP. While most will RSVP on time, usually about one month prior to the wedding date is standard. The major problem with RSVPs is ~10% who say they are coming but don’t show up and bail out two weeks before the wedding. We will call this group the “false positives”. This happens frequently because South Asians don’t like to offend family/friends by declining an invitation months in advance. This is not sociology 101, so we won’t get into that.
For example, a 200 RSVP guest wedding in 2021, will by reduced by the RSVP false positives and last minute cancellations. The others we will call “no shows”. Some might be reeling off of 2020’s business fallout and others might have yet to receive a vaccine. It will be very dynamic to say the least. One idea is to over invite, but that would mean inviting someone you really don’t care for so what’s the point of having them attend. In essence, it is highly probable the 2021 will bring smaller weddings and intimate gatherings.
Scaling Down
Other couples are continuing on with the intent to get married but with a major scale down which includes changing from ocean front hotels to having a havankund in the middle of the living room. We will call this the “reconciled” group, as they have come to terms with the pandemic and adjusted accordingly. Most in this group are cancelling the sangeet and garba in-lieu of a small house get-together. Many couples are also choosing smaller quaint venues.
Another great option is to condense three events into two events. Consider having a sangeet night and only a wedding in the morning, many in the Leuva Patidar samaj or group have done this for years. The first dance, caking cutting and formalities take place on sangeet night. There are huge cost savings and the social aspect still remains in tact.
We definitely recommend guest counts less than 200 for 2021 as starting point. You can always add more guests next year. For those continuing on with their final destination in the year 2020, be extremely flexible with guest counts