Dancing in Ontario (simcoe Muskoka County)

Looks like media picked up on this

https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/09/ontario-wedding-venue-owner-local-public-health-unit-banned-dancing/

Hello! Would you mind sending me a copy of this email aswell? Would be nice to have a copy for my upcoming day!

May I please also have the email?

I am encountering this same issue for my wedding. We have decided to just play background music and everyone can "mingle". The bar will be open and music will be playing.

Its not perfect, but it will have to do.

I assume is someone decides to get up and bust a move, who's going to stop them.

Fingers crossed our days turns out ok.

Its hard to absorb the information of banning dancing at a wedding due to covid. As a couple who wants to enjoy an evening with close friends and family on the dance floor, its devastating to know they won't be able to party after dinner.

Venues on the other hand aren't taking the chance on anyone dancing. The government email is great to show as proof though they may still not accept the fact. The risk that comes upon them is what they are being careful about.

From both sides of the token, there can be a sacrifice unless the party is carried over to another place for dancing.

Just to add to Hank's comment, all venues are required to ensure you and your guests are properly physically distancing while at your wedding. Even if dancing isn't banned in your area, if your venue doesn't feel they can enforce physical distancing with dancing occurring, they should abolsutely keep it as a restriction. On the other hand, if your area has banned dancing, your venue could be heavily fined for allowing it to occur.

I also think it's pretty unlikely everyone would maintain proper social distancing after having a few drinks, no matter how good the intention was (which is essentially the rationale behind why dancing is banned at bars/nightclubs right now).

I understand that we all just want to have "normal" weddings this year, but the health of all of us, our guests, and other people we all come into contact with is way more important than dancing and this isn't the time to see if we can bend the rules.

York Region doesn't need to specify dancing because Ontario's Stage 3 guidelines already cover no dancing allowed. But your first dance will be fine. It's a slow dance so it's low risk to your guests and your partner is in your social circle anyway. The government just don't want 50 people jumping around together, bumping and grinding as you huff and puff while drunk and sweating all over the place.

Your local health unit has more insight into your local population than the province does, hence additional measures mandated by your local health unit. For example, the Province didn't mandate masks but pretty much all local health units worked with their municipality to do so. You could imagine how silly one would sound if they apply the the logic of "the province doesn't think masks are needed for safety so let's abolish that rule for my wedding." There's probably a reason Simcoe County is prohibiting dancing.

I'm going to sound like a buzzkill but if I was invited to a wedding and find people I don't know and haven't seen in a while disregarding the rules, I would be extremely uncomfortable. Maybe it's me misreading the tone of written words here, but it sounds more like people are concerned with finding loopholes and not getting into trouble rather than the health and safety of their guests. I apologize if I'm misinterpreting any words but that's what this all comes off as sounding.

I mentioned this to Gabriella in another thread but let's say your local health unit and your venue allows dancing within your social circle, can you honestly say that you and your guests will actually follow that rule?