Ceremony & reception guest restrictions

I am in the exact same boat as you! We got legally married in April and we'll have a celebration April 2021. I'm also a huge planner and I'm struggling with re-planning everything when we don't know what restrictions will be in place in April next year. I think that I've come to terms with the fact that I won't know what our celebration will look like until probably March. Then I'll have to quickly plan how it will all work based on the restrictions. We have an indoor venue, but this summer they've created a patio in their parking lot. I'm hoping it stays so maybe we can do an outdoor live band or maybe even dancing or lawn games. I do have a few back up venues in mind just in case. Also, I think we're going to send just family members a save the date for right now. We're slightly under the 50 person cap with just family included. We'll likely tell our closest friends to save the date but we won't be able to confirm until March or so. We've made the decision that we're not going to postpone again, so if we have to cut the guest list down, we absolutely will (originally around 80 people).
I look forward to hearing what you guys decide to do.

The restrictions aren't the best to deal with as guest lists go. Its the tough choice to make for cutting down or finding a hall that will fit everyone invited. Venues may allow or not allow depending on their halls. Best to inquire and then compromise to a number that will work for you both to accommodate your guests.

You'll just have to wait and hope that by April things will be better. Ford has already indicated that the gathering numbers will not change before the end of the year. Considering how this pandemic is affecting us much longer than what we expected, and the federal government hinting that we're in this for the long haul, you should really speak to your husband about what to do moving forward if we're still stuck in Stage 3 come April. It's either you move the date to please him or he reduces the guest count to please you but either way, it's a frank conversation you'll need to have.

Hi Savannah - I am in the same boat. We had to move our original wedding date from July to November. Now November is also looking sketchy and the venue provided us a 3rd date in April. We are currently restricted to 50 people per our venue capacity of 150 and the 30% capacity rule for COVID. Problem is - we have 80 people invited to the wedding. We keep waiting each time for the venue to provide us their guidelines based on the gov't recommendations - it's an ongoing 'wait and see' game which makes it incredibly difficult to plan.

We also already had our ceremony - backyard wedding to make it official and the bigger celebration later. Trying to stay positive and enjoy whatever may come at us. It's a good marriage test if nothing else!