⚡ Key Takeaways
- From early June 2020, the UK government plans to allow small weddings of approximately 50 guests, though larger celebrations may need to wait until August or later.
- If you were planning a large wedding, you may want to consider postponing to autumn or winter 2020 when bigger gatherings are expected to be permitted.
- Religious ceremonies could face longer delays than registry office weddings, as places of worship may not reopen until July 4 at the earliest depending on social distancing measures.
- Booking a 2021 Saturday wedding is currently very difficult as venues are already fully booked from rescheduled 2020 weddings, so you should decide soon whether to pursue a smaller summer 2020 event or move to later dates.
- The government will release further reopening guidance a few days before June 3rd, so check for updates then if you need more clarity on your wedding plans.
When will weddings be allowed again is the question at the top of all our minds, both for wedding couples and for the whole wedding event industry which according to hitched is worth £10 billion a year.
The UK economy needs a strong wedding industry and with summer fast approaching, we all want to know when we can get married.
After all, with thousands of wedding’s already postponed From March for the rest of 2020, the next wedding season of 2021 is already looking like it will be the busiest season on record which means you need to make a decision soon on whether to hold out for a 2020 summer wedding or look into moving to later on in the year.
At this stage moving your wedding to a Saturday in 2021 is looking like a non-starter with venues and suppliers already fully booked based on their 2020 bookings which have been rescheduled.
Latest Government advice
The latest advice from the government is that from early June 2020 small gatherings such as weddings will be allowed, the big caveat here is that we do not know what small gatherings amount to. Our best guess based on other countries and their relaxation rules which they have introduced would be a maximum of 50 people.
Guidance published by the Government says it understands the “frustration” of couples planning a wedding and intends to enable small ceremonies to take place in England from June 1.
Holding a wedding for 50 guests may be perfect for you however for some couples who were planning a large wedding this may be a reason to hold off on a summer 2020 wedding.
Another thing to consider is where you are getting married, places of worship could be closed until July 4 at the earliest, dependent on whether they can adequately enforce social distancing measures so a religious ceremony might just be further down the line than for example a private wedding venue with a registrar.
Autumn and Winter 2020
We envisage that large gatherings will be permitted from August 2020 which means that if you already have booked an autumn or winter 2020 wedding then we would suggest you keep hold of that date for now as it is likely that this can go ahead as planned.
Autumn and winter is typically a cheaper time of year to get married so if budget is something you worry about you can save money by changing the date of your wedding to a month later on in the year.
When will we know more
The UK government are due to release more plans for the next stages of the reopening plan a few days before each stage, the 2nd stage of this plan is on the 3rd June so we can expect an update a few days before that.
