Requiring Vaccines for Guests

Following, two months later, because I'm feeling the stress of wanting to asks guests as well for proof of vaccination. I'm hoping there are restrictions still by next year, but for the world's sake I don't want that - just want to be selfish and use restrictions as an excuse to ask.

But yeah, I feel this, and a lot of the responses sound amazing - I'll be referring back to this discussion later on!

A nice note of personal choice to be vaccinated or not is upon you and we respect your decision. Though the restrictions of proof are in order by the government, we would want to have a safe and enjoyable celebration.

Hoo boy this is tough but I agree let the government be the 'bad guy!' I am ok with just a negative test but it I out of my hands. Also you don't want everyone side eyeing each other all night.

I'm in Alberta, and so we have the restriction exemption program, which I am so thankful for because I don't have to be the person who says I don't agree with your choices you can't come to my wedding. But instead the gov't has done that for me ha.

I am however planning an outdoor ceremony so everyone can attend, no matter their vaccine status. I will also provide masks for anyone who isn't comfortable being outdoors with the unvaxxed.

Nova Scotia put a vaccine mandate in effect for all types of gatherings that bring large groups together 4 days before our wedding and our venues required people to show their proof of vaccination upon arrival.

We messaged all of our guests personally to remind them to have a copy of their proof of vaccination on them so they didn't run into any issues. Sadly this meant we lost a few guests that we weren't aware hadn't been vaccinated. However even the guests who could no longer attend didn't have any hard feelings against us when they weren't allowed to come anymore.

While it's a different story for you since your province isn't requiring it, I'm sure just letting your guests know that it is what you're most comfortable with will suffice.

Thank you all so much for this! Really helped us out. Manitoba does require vaccines right now and so we will definitely use that, but it is good to hear what some of you did when it wasn't required because if Manitoba takes that restriction away we will still want to require guests the be vaccinated.

We made an insert out of our driving directions card. We figured most people have GPS and do not need driving instructions (though our venue also gave us a paper print out we put qith the invitations.)

This is what I currently have written up.

While we’re both so looking forward to our big day, we wanted to take a moment to address something that we fully understand is a very complex and nuanced topic: COVID-19 vaccinations.

We want to celebrate our wedding with as many of our loved ones as possible, but we also want to be as safe as possible; our wedding day is one we hope can be looked back upon as a joyful occasion, and not as one where COVID-19 was spread. That’s why we’ve decided that in order to attend our wedding, guests must be fully vaccinated. We understand if you aren’t in full agreement with our decision, but we only ask that you respect it, as this was not an easy decision at which to arrive. Please submit your RSVP accordingly.

EDIT: In Sask you must be fully vaccinated OR provide a negative test. Due to my health and my mother being immunocompromised, that's why we're going this route.

On our RSVP page is two options: Fully Vaccinated and Attending, Not attending

Hello Ashley 👋🏾

I understand that, this is how I notified our guests:

“Hello Friends and Family:

We are almost there to celebrate our BIG day!

As you are likely aware, the provincial government introduces a regulation on September 22nd, 2021 mandating that only full vaccinated individuals can access certain public settings and facilities.

With the new vaccine requirement, all attendees (guests and vendor) will need to be fully vaccinated (two doses plus 14 days) and provide their along with to access the wedding reception.

Unvaccinated guests can attend an outdoor ceremony but would not be permitted to go inside the venue.

We are aware that it can be challenging with these restrictions. Thank you for your patience with us during this time. We really appreciate your understanding.

Love,“

Manitoba currently requires proof of vaccination for dining indoors or to attend events in indoor recreational spaces. Just simply state that it is the law.

I would relate it back to health - something like ‘our of respect for the health and safety of our guests, we are requiring proof of vaccination for this event. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.’ We were lucky that our venue requires it due to government restrictions so we were able to say it was the rule. But we just said ‘In order to follow government regulations, our venue requires vaccination to enter. Please bring your proof of vaccination’. That is on our website, and on our invites we put ‘Our venue requires proof of vaccination to enter’.