Over the last few months, the new coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has upended, or altogether halted, many couples’ wedding plans. Due to safety precautions like state- and city-wide lockdowns, stay-in-place orders, and social distancing measures, couples have had to cancel, downsize, or postpone their weddings.
But even when COVID-19 restrictions are slowly lifted, ensuring the health and safety of your loved ones, as well as your own, continues to be paramount. It’s the reason creating a wedding website with Joy is more essential than ever as you plan and your wedding. From live streaming to informing guests about social distancing protocols, here are five ways a wedding website can help you realize your wedding while also staying safe.
1. Create a central hub guests can check for changing plans
At a basic level, a wedding website is an opportunity to share information about your wedding with guests. You might need a wedding website if you envision a one-stop-shop covering the ins-and-outs of your event, or a central hub guests can visit, from anywhere on any device, to learn about what to expect.
Even if you anticipate a certain outcome, there’s bound to be snags along the way, especially during and after the COVID-19. Whether it’s an issue with a vendor, the venue, the catering staff, or something else, you can use your website to update your details in one place.
2. Quickly communicate important announcements to guests
At some point in your wedding planning, you may need to alert guests about an important development for your big day. This could be a last-minute change in your venue, a live stream link, or anything else you think all guests need to know.
No need to keep track of individual phone calls, texts, and emails—a wedding website is an easy, streamlined way to keep all guests up to date. With Joy, you can immediately catch guests’ attention by adding an announcement banner to the top of your website. And if it’s particularly urgent, you can send guests free, unlimited email messages pointing them to the announcement, or anything else you wish.
3. Include essential details about your socially-distanced wedding
If you’ve decided to have a socially-distanced wedding, the FAQ page on your Joy website is an ideal place to cover guests’ curiosities and concerns. Whether you want to have your wedding now, but with a much smaller guest list, or are planning your wedding for 2021 and beyond, it’s wise to anticipate what guests might be wondering about.
This is especially important now, as not everyone will respond to the coronavirus and your wedding decisions similarly. As you craft your FAQs, imagine yourself as the guest. What would be your top concerns related to health and safety during the wedding?
You can consider questions like:
- “Will I be grouped at the reception by household?”
- “Will I be provided with protective gear like masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer?”
- “Is everyone, including vendors, expected to wear protective gear?”
- “What will dancing and social distancing look like?”
There are still uncertainties with COVID-19, how it spreads, and how to protect yourself, so it’s best to follow updated guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). As you do, sit down with your partner and come up with a list of questions and answers that will put guests’ minds at ease.
Note: You can also include information about your socially-distanced wedding, and the safety precautions you’ll take, on the announcement banner, Story page, or Schedule page of your Joy website.
4. Ask guests questions about attendance plans based on COVID-19
A wedding website with Joy gives you the freedom and flexibility to ask guests any, and as many, questions as you wish. If you’re planning a socially-distanced wedding or another unique setup, you may want to know certain information from guests to ensure a safe environment.
Using the RSVP Questions page, you can ask questions like:
- “Will you attend our socially-distanced wedding?”
- “Will you bring a plus one to our socially-distanced wedding?”
- “You will (and your plus one) wear a mask?”
- “Will you (and your plus one) wear gloves?”
- “Will you (and your plus one) bring hand sanitizer?”
You can then send guests a digital wedding invitation via your Joy website. Guests will be able to access all of the details on your website, their personalized RSVP form, and the questions you’ve laid out for them. Once guests submit the RSVP, you’ll receive email confirmation of their responses, which will also automatically populate on your Guest List.
5. Live stream your wedding directly from your Joy wedding website
Whether you choose to get married now or at a future date, you have the option of live streaming your wedding with Joy. If you don’t feel comfortable planning a socially-distanced wedding, or having your friends and family travel to a venue, live streaming may be ideal. The best part is you can set up your live stream directly through your Joy website.
Sit down with your partner to come up with a date and time that works for you, then announce your live stream details on your website. If you were planning on a traditional, in-person wedding and had already sent your invitations when COVID-19 emerged, use Joy’s Change the Date E-Cards to share your new plans with guests.
You can also use the announcement banner feature to display your live streaming details, and anything else guests need to know about how to witness your big day.
Takeaway
Although COVID-19 has created uncertainty with wedding planning, you have options with Joy. By creating a wedding website and leveraging its various tools, you can celebrate with your nearest and dearest while also keeping their health and safety top of mind.
