When Will Weddings Resume

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.

What we must all remember is that your weddings have not been canceled but have been postponed til a later date... most likely 2021.

Couples are now left worried, concerned and have many questions. Some are wondering what their weddings will look like now..

Julian Voigt who is one of our highly recommended and professional Videographers has kindly shared his perspective of the whole situation regarding Covid-19 and weddings.

 He may be able to answer all those worries and concerns that you have.

When will weddings resume-

and what will they look like…

Were you getting married in 2020?

 If you were planning on getting married in 2020, then no-doubt when you heard Boris Johnson’s address to the nation on the 23^{rd of} March this year saying that the nation was going into lockdown, then no doubt your heart sank!  What about your wedding? What about all those suppliers you had booked and paid deposits to? What about all your guests that you had invited, maybe some had already made plans to travel some distance, perhaps from abroad, to attend your wedding? No doubt these and many other questions went through your mind.

 From the perspective of a wedding supplier - a Videographer- I also had many similar questions. When Boris made that life-changing announcement, I immediately thought about the 38 weddings I had booked in for 2020 and all those couples and all their plans, some of them for weddings abroad. Fast forward to May 20^th and the impact of that announcement back then is now being fully realised. I now have just 9 weddings booked in for 2020 and that number may also reduce further. Most of the remaining weddings I have for 2020 are in September, October & December, the rest of my weddings have moved to 2021 and thankfully I have been able to re-schedule all but one wedding so far.  

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.

So...what will those weddings look like?

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 25^th

And Ireland from July 20^th.  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…

 Here are 3 important considerations:

  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. 

 2) What will be the cost?  This is an important consideration. As things change and stricter measures are put in place at venues and on suppliers you can bet your bottom dollar that costs will increase too.  Regulation comes at a price and therefore maybe the wedding you were dreaming of may cost a lot more in the future than your budget will allow?

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

 But here’s something to think about; With many weddings that were due to take place in 2020, now having been re-scheduled to 2021, finding a good videographer in 2021 is going to be difficult if couples leave it too late! My advice is, do it now!   As we enter what is the ‘New normal’ especially when it comes to weddings, videographers are going to become ever more important because they alone capture a wedding as it really happened in totality.

 Also, videographers like myself are going to have to become more creative and start thinking of new ways to help couples have the wedding they have been dreaming about. For example, during this Lockdown I have discovered a new app called Zoom, perhaps you have?  This amazing piece of software is great at helping people keep in touch, meet and interact and this got me thinking; could I offer a video streaming service to my couples at their weddings via Zoom? 

 So here is what that may look like; say you can only have 50 people at your wedding and there were another 50-100 other people that you also had really wanted at your wedding; Well, with zoom a good internet connection a laptop and a spare camera we could make this happen. We could set up a live video stream of say your wedding ceremony (as an example) and set up a Zoom meeting for as many as you like to log onto and hence they could be virtually present with you live for the Big moments in your wedding day. This is something I will be offering my clients going forward as a solution to the low numbers likely allowed at future weddings. Yes I know, it’s not what you really want, but it is a solution that could ensure those who can’t be with you physically, can still be with you virtually on your Big day and the great thing about zoom is that you the couple, after the Ceremony could interact for a while with those tied in via video- how cool is that!

  I am sure as time goes on, other ideas will surface about weddings in the ‘New normal’ and they will once again become the joyous occasions they are meant to be and yes we will adapt and life will go on.

Take a look at Julian's You Tube video

  JULIAN VOIGT FILMS  

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