Most brides don’t envision their big day including the use of face masks and social distancing, but here we are in the middle of a pandemic that doesn’t seem to be getting much better.
If you’re like me, or my fellow newly married teammate Bri Volz, COVID-19 has thrown a major wrench in wedding planning. We both had to cancel and postpone our weddings due to the coronavirus pandemic, and while I’m hopeful my redo date will pan out, a new COVID wedding calculator isn’t inspiring much hope.
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Online wedding planning tool Joy has developed a wedding planning calculator to help brides and grooms determine how “at risk” their wedding plans are at the hands of the pandemic.
The process is simple: log onto the site, enter your wedding date, answer a few questions about your wedding and guests who will be attending and the site will generate your results.
“Joy’s COVID Wedding Calculator helps couples determine if their wedding is at risk of being impacted by COVID-19, indicates the level of changes that may be necessary to their plans, and provides an overview of changes to consider making,” a spokesperson said in a news release.
Joy also conducted a nationwide survey of engaged couples to learn more about how bride and grooms-to-be are handling their wedding plans in the face of a pandemic and found that many couples are making big changes:
- 76% now plan to have micro-weddings with less than 50 guests
- 73% now plan to hold their weddings in the city they live in
- 22% now plan to have their wedding at a drivable destination
- Only 5% now plan to have a destination wedding that requires air travel
- 65% would incorporate a live stream for their wedding
“The calculator accounts for concerns shared by couples during focus groups, wedding date, guest count, venue type, whether air travel is required, and more. Its methodology is based on public health guidelines, social distancing recommendations, gathering size limits, travel restrictions, and predicted vaccine availability,” a company spokesperson said. “After viewing initial results, couples can modify responses to map out scenarios and the changes needed for each, to develop a plan they feel comfortable with.”
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