Smashing the Glass | Jewish Wedding Blog

 
Where there’s a will there’s a way: this awesome couple got around Israel’s current 10-person limit on gatherings by getting married in a supermarket, one of the few spots where more people are permitted to gather! Big props to this duo, whose wedding is featured in all the images in this post, and their photographer, Meir Lavi.

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If you’re getting married in the next few weeks, or even months, you’re no doubt consumed with coronavirus wedding concerns.

I know some of you are facing some really tough decisions right now about whether to postpone your weddings, or else potentially face drastically reduced guest lists.

If postponing seems like a good option for you (and only you and your family can decide that – it’s a very personal decision), contact your venue and vendors to see if there is a backup date that works, and find out when you need to make a final decision. Get this in writing and make a note of the date by when you need to make a final decision. 

To Postpone or Not to Postpone?

What are some reasons postponing might be especially worth considering?

As of the writing of this post, the latest US guidelines call for avoiding groups of more than 10 people through at least the end of March, with CDC guidelines calling for Americans to cancel or postpone events for more than 50 people through early May. So unless you’re down for a hyper-intimate ceremony (which is an option not to be discounted – see below for more on this), if you’re planning to get married in the US this spring your decision will likely have been made for you. 

Same if you’ve been planning a wedding in Italy, where non-essential travel and gatherings of over 100 people are banned at least until April 3 (and likely longer).

If your wedding is set for somewhere with less stringent guidelines at present, you’ll want to consider whether you’ve got lots of guests traveling from abroad, who may very possibly be unable or unwilling to make the trip under the circumstances. You’ll also want to consider elderly, immunocompromised, and otherwise at-risk guests – if you have many on your list, or if their numbers include any VIPs you can’t see yourself getting married without, postponing may be your best bet.

Now and Later

There remains the option to have a small ceremony now – civil and/or religious – and hold the big celebration until things are calmer. This can literally be the two of you, an officiant, and two witnesses, or it can be an intimate gathering of just a handful of your very closest family and friends.

Some of our STG Brides Club members have done exactly this, opting to have a civil wedding followed by a small lunch or dinner now, and a Jewish ceremony at a later date when more guests will be able to celebrate with them. This way, they can still celebrate (and, you know, actually be married!) on their original wedding date. If you go this route, you can even livestream the ceremony to those who can’t attend in person if you like! 

Now is the time to think out of the box, and to stay focused on what really matters – like the awesome Israeli couple pictured in the photos throughout this post did.

To get around Israel’s current restrictions on gatherings of more than 10 people, they opted to hold their Jewish wedding in a supermarket, one of the few spots where larger crowds are allowed to congregate! Is this the wedding these two thought they’d be having three months ago? Almost certainly not. But is it just as special and beautiful as the most luxe of weddings we see in non-pandemic times? Absolutely.

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