Couples have been left heartbroken this year as their weddings that they have been planning for the last couple of years have had to be postponed due to Covid-19.
and what will they look like…
Obviously, it would be wrong to not give mention or thought
to the much more serious implications of COVID19 namely, the loss of life and
those whose lives have been changed forever having lost someone close to them.
At times like these the saying of a close family friend often comes to my mind;
-‘Any problem that money can fix, is not really a problem…’ Yes, many of us have lost income, perhaps
deposits or even money spent on flights, if we were getting married abroad and
we are not sure if we will ever get that money back and if so, when? But hey,
we will all survive, and life will get back to normal at some point, whatever
that ‘new normal’ may look like?
Those who have lost loved ones is death, well that is a whole different
matter.
When will I be able to get married?
This is the Big question, when will weddings resume here in the UK? If you go on the Governments - Gov.UK website, it simply says that; “You cannot get married or register a civil partnership at the moment…”
However, on the 11th of May the UK Government made an announcement that gave the wedding industry and no doubt many couples planning on getting married in 2020 a glimmer of hope.
Boris Johnson announced that the lockdown measures currently in place would “ease” and that the hospitality sector would look to re-open (albeit slowly in July) with talk of theatres and cinemas being allowed to open. That naturally made those in the Wedding Industry wonder, ‘What about Weddings…?’ Again, there is still a distinct lack of clarity at the moment but according to some Government Ministers, there is talk that small weddings will be possible from July.
Again, we don’t yet know, but… here is what I have been able to work out as to how weddings are likely to look like from July onwards. If we have a look at what is now happening in Spain, they are about 4-6 weeks ahead of us in terms of managing COVID19, we see that Spain is allowing Weddings from May 25th
And Ireland from July 20th. Now regarding Weddings in Spain, all I could
find out was a brief reference to ‘small weddings.’ How many are small I hear you ask? Well again, I couldn’t find any definitive
answer other than the weddings will be small enough to accommodate, “…Just family
and close friends.” So, my guess, and it is a guess, is that number would
be about 50 people maximum. Now for many,
that would not be the wedding they would want with just 50 guests, and I can
understand that, a wedding is a once in a lifetime (for most of us ; ) event
and you may feel you really don’t want to compromise on that, you want to have all
your family and friends there. So, would it be better to wait, perhaps
postpone to next year? Perhaps; If you
have been planning your wedding for many years and having all your
Family and friends around you is important, then yes it would make sense to
postpone the wedding and look forward to the wedding you really want. However,
there are some things you need to consider…
1) When will it be possible to have weddings with large numbers of people again? Maybe, going forward that may not be a soon as you think! Reading between the lines and what the media are saying about the ‘New Normal’ – you may have heard that phrase just a few times recently- it’s looking like the Governments are wanting to bring in a Global Vaccination program before life can completely return to normal if indeed it ever will, and that in itself throws up a ton of questions like; what about those who do not want a vaccination? For example there is a growing movement of people who are not comfortable having a ‘mandatory vaccine.’ So those who perhaps refuse, would they be allowed to attend your wedding? Let’s say all your guests are OK with having the vaccine, when will such a safe effective vaccine exist? Will that be available in 6 months, a year, or longer? So, larger gatherings may be off the cards much longer than we think.
3) Travel. How is this going to work going forward? Well, considering the first two points mentioned above you can imagine that if vaccines becoming mandatory say here in the UK but perhaps not in another country and yet you have people traveling from one country to another for your wedding, then that in itself will pose a whole new heap of problems, not to mention the availability of airlines to transport people and the cost involved, because if we end up with less Airlines (inevitable) then the price to fly will increase, not to mention the added regulations at airports etc etc.. I am sure you get the picture.
Weighing Everything Up...
The fact is, that the ‘New Normal’ means we will have to perhaps change our expectations and starting planning now for the likely new reality of what life and yes weddings are going to be like going forward from here. I think we will all have to be adaptable and start being honest with ourselves and our clients if we are a supplier in the wedding industry when it comes to offering advice.
Having your wedding filmed may now have just moved up the list of your priorities!
Ok, I am not just saying this because I am a wedding videographer, no, I have given this a lot of thought. Whatever you decide going forward with your wedding it’s a given that numbers will have to be reduced. For many reasons, having a large wedding may simply not be possible going forward into the ‘New Normal.’ Hence, how you chose to document that once in a lifetime event becomes even more important, would you not agree? So, here is the question; what is the best possible way to capture your wedding so that others that perhaps cannot make it, can experience it more or less as it happened? In my mind there is only one way, video. Photographs as important as they are, do not capture the emotions like moving images and sounds can. The absolute best way to faithfully document a wedding as it happened is by video, period. Look at it this way, if you were a Manchester United supporter and they were playing in a Cup final and you were unable to attend, would you prefer looking at pictures and some commentary about the match, after it was over, or watch a video recording of the match with HD picture and high quality sound? I rest my case J
JULIAN VOIGT FILMS