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Planning a beautiful wedding celebration can be stressful in the best of times and since the onset of the pandemic, it has been a minefield trying to navigate the ever-changing restrictions.

Narcity spoke with Ottawa wedding planner Brittany Frid for some pro tips on how to ensure your wedding day goes smoothly. Frid has been in the industry for 10 years now and has helped plan and coordinate weddings all over the globe.

“Over COVID, there has been a dramatic shift in how we’ve had to plan and how I’ve had to coach couples through the wedding planning process,” Frid told Narcity.

“I have been working really hard to try to master all of the COVID requirements and figure out anything that we can do to help make the process a lot easier.” Frid said. “All the weddings that we did actually have last year, were flawless and easy. The events went smoothly and felt like real weddings with no awkwardness around the idea of masks, seating plans, rules, and everything.”

Here are the seven biggest tips you need to know.

Create a website & keep communication open

“Communication with your guests and with your vendors is the most important part of making sure that everybody is comfortable throughout the planning process. In particular, invitations should be accompanied by a wedding website to update your guests with all of the new rules and if there are any changes.” Frid started.

“Wedding websites have become commonplace these days,” she continued. “Now instead of having a traditional RSVP card or additional details card, all of that information is posted online. Links to group blocks at hotels, any activities that you could potentially do within your city for people who are traveling, meal selections, allergies, would all be listed on his wedding website when they RSVP as well.”

“If your guest list needs to be reduced at the last minute, because of local changes, you can cut it quickly on the website. You can also explain very clearly that while all guests are being invited right now, based on provincial restrictions, you might have to reduce the guest list or postpone the wedding.” Frid details.

“[Advise guests to] check the website for further updates. That way it prepares all of your guests for potential changes without it feeling awkward or uncomfortable to have to explain that to everybody individually.”

Send out invitations 6 months in advance

“I like to recommend sending invitations out at least six months in advance, and also requiring the RSVP deadline to be two months at least before the wedding. That way, you have two months to finalize your floor plan and get all of your rental orders, floral orders and food orders fully prepared, and follow up with any RSVPs that haven’t been confirmed yet.” Frid advised.

“Send out your invites six months in advance, and have it accompanied with a wedding website that suggests that there might be changes to the guest list before the wedding, then you can track all of the RSVPs up until two months before the wedding. That seems to be the easiest plan for getting your invitations out and sent,” Frid went on.

She clarified, “A lot of people are waiting until one month before the wedding to get their invitations out just in case restrictions cut the guest list, but that doesn’t give couples enough time to finalize the floor plan, change rental orders and confirm the guest list with the caterers. In reality, if you’ve got all of that information listed on the wedding website, then you can plan in advance and your guests and vendors will have a much easier time navigating changes.”

Add vaccination status to the RSVP

“[RSVPs] should also be asking whether the guests are fully vaccinated or have a medical exemption because now in order to go into a commercial venue or an event, you will need to have proof of full vaccination using the scannable QR code that’s assigned to you through the government,” Frid said.

She said this helps with planning and, “it makes it less of an emotional conversation because it’s not a decision that you have to make. It’s a conversation saying as much as we would love to have you, unfortunately, the province requires you to be vaccinated in order for you to attend our wedding.”

“In addition, considering that we now need the enhanced COVID vaccination certificates with a scannable QR code, I recommend having at least two to three people download the Verify Ontario app, and be in charge of scanning vaccine passports when they first walk on site. Station them outdoors where it’s safe, making sure that everybody is getting scanned.”

“Many venues [are saying] it’s a bit unclear about who exactly is responsible for scanning those QR codes and tracking,” she added. “Many of the city-owned venues, are saying that they are not responsible, which makes me believe that venues, in general, will not claim responsibility for scanning in every individual guest.”

“A lot of venues don’t have anybody necessarily on-site the day off, sometimes they just give you access and then walk away. Other times wedding planners will be in charge. Other times guests will be in charge,” she said. “It’s very complicated, but from what I understand the host of the party [the couple] is technically the responsible party.”

Have a COVID-19 safety plan

“At the beginning of COVID, the government had suggested having a COVID safety plan for every wedding. I thought it was a brilliant idea.” Frid specified, “It basically confirms that you have required everybody on-site as having been vaccinated, it confirms that you have complied with all of the government restrictions, that all of the staff for the event have been warned that should they have symptoms or get COVID, that they have to communicate back and let everybody know that somebody has contracted COVID.”

“The COVID safety plan is confirming that everything has been thought of, makes sure that there are plans in place should something serious happen, exactly what those steps are going to be, how people have been warned and what the follow-up will be afterward.”

Frid has created her own downloadable COVID safety plan in the form of a checklist. “I prepared a COVID safety plan for Ontario early in COVID days and made it public online. If you go to my website and subscribe to my newsletter, any COVID information I have regularly there, and you can download the COVID safety plan at any point.”

“For every event that we’ve done, we’ve had our COVID safety list… we print that off with a copy of our timeline and all of our final documents to be on site with the wedding planners so that we have it [ready] if bylaw were to happen to come by and try to shut us down. We have had thousands of downloads for it, it’s been very helpful.”

Create 3 different floor plans for different capacities

“You should create three different floor plans for your wedding, and have three different guests lists accompany those three different floor plans based on a 25% capacity, 50% capacity and 100% capacity for socially distanced weddings.”

“The government’s definition of capacity during COVID is different from what a venue and couples talk about as capacity. Typically, a capacity would be the number of guests that you could have in a physical room that complies with the fire codes. In terms of COVID capacity, it is how many people can be seated within the area while socially distanced.” Frid explained.

“Anytime the zone structures or anything changes, the government seems to stick to the 25%, 50% and 100% general capacities. We can roughly predict what stage they’re going to jump to next, and we have a full plan prepared for each of those [capacities]. If you have individual guests lists for each of those three capacities, then you can send out the invitations properly, you can narrow down your guests properly, and you can warn everybody properly.”

She continued, “You can also communicate with your vendors much more effectively because you can state, we have three different floor plans, [here they are]. They generally need their final orders one month before the wedding, that’s when you can say okay, we are executing the 50% plan based on the government restrictions right now, you know what to do. Everybody already has the details.”

Don’t book a hotel block in case things change

“Those blocks would be under contract with the hotel. Generally speaking, the hotel will give the group block at a 10% – 20% discount on the rooms, provided that you fulfill the contract and get every room in that block booked. Hotels may charge if those rooms aren’t fully booked,” Frid clarified the details of a hotel group block. She indicated that this puts you at an additional risk during the pandemic if guests can no longer attend and cancel the room bookings.

“I personally think it’s quite a headache to try to organize group blocks, and a lot of guests don’t want to be confined to one price point. What I suggest doing instead of getting a group block and having to manage travel for guests in the middle of COVID, is to list three different hotels at three different price points that are all close to the venue or close to the airport, on your wedding website.” Frid told us.

“I would also recommend that if you’re staying in a hotel, you can list your hotel as one of the hotels that people can stay in. Then your wedding party and everybody can stay at the same hotel, which you’re likely going to want anyway.”

“Don’t get room blocks, post links to the individual hotels to make it easier for booking and put the suggested rates underneath the titles for each of the hotels,” Frid explained, ” I don’t believe that couples need to be responsible for sorting that out. A lot of couples think that it’s a requirement that they need to do group blocks because it’s traditional, but in reality, it’s a complementary thing that couples do to help guests.”

Hire a wedding planner or coordinator

Simply put, “[I] suggest people hire a wedding planner or coordinator to help them navigate these things because if there are last-minute changes it can be really stressful to do. The month of the wedding is the most stressful by far for anyone, so to be able to alleviate some of those last-minute changes helps a lot. It’s worth it.”

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