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Couples across Ireland have been devastated as new Level 3 guidelines prohibit live music and dancing at weddings.
The new guidelines, distributed by Fáilte Ireland this week and agreed under the Departments of Health and Arts and Culture, state that up to 25 guests can attend the ceremony and reception (not including the bride, groom, and staff), however , in the reception. , the event must be a sit-down meal with “live music / dance – not allowed and supplies / novelty acts – not allowed”
Under previous Level 3 restrictions in August, dancing was allowed as long as there were signs to remind guests to adhere to physical distance guidelines.
Thomas Redmond, 34, will marry his partner Alan at the Merrion Hotel in Dublin on New Year’s Eve and says the guidelines demonstrate a lack of trust.
“When it came back to Level 3, we never questioned it, we knew the dance might go away but now the live music is gone too.
“We changed our wedding plans three times, we changed the venue, we had a great band and then we changed them and lost our deposit.
“Like anyone, we weren’t sure if we were going to go ahead, but we don’t know what next year will be like either.
“It will be strange, but we are still looking forward to it, but it is a great blow to know that we could not even have music, we had planned little things, for me to play the piano as a surprise and since we were supposed to get married in Spain, we planned to have Spanish music.
“We knew it wouldn’t be the same, so we took the necessary steps to make it our own.
“My partner’s sister’s wedding was canceled twice this year and this is the only family reunion this year.
“It’s so disturbing, there seems to be no trust in places to deliver it safely or that the public abides by the rules.
“We make difficult decisions, with only four friends with no partners present and the rest only with family and you are willing to do that and at every moment you are blocked again by something else.”
The Wedding Band Association says couples and musicians have put themselves in an impossible position.
“We are very frustrated and upset about it, we pushed through the Irish Hotel Federation for no changes to be made to the previous Level 3 guidelines and now it has,” says founder and wedding musician Cathal Molloy.
“Most of the bands are full-time, and it’s not just about the financial burden for them, but about the couple staying on a rock and a hard place, for example, who is responsible for the deposit?
“This will have a massive impact as we will probably be on Level 3 until April or May, for example, weddings heading into February, March and April, if couples think they can’t have live music they think; which is The point? We are bombarded with panic emails.
The Association believes that they can mitigate the danger of spreading the virus and had previously applied certain measures during performances, such as a distance between the stage and the guests, easy to do due to the size of the wedding rooms and only 25 people at weddings. , fever checks and having bands sign statements.
They say their members have taken Covid compliance security courses to get back to business safely.
“My own band does about 170 weddings a year, since July we have done only 15 and we have not had any problems, there are no identifiable groups that we know of,” added Molloy.
A spokesperson for the Department of Tourism, Culture, Art, Gaeltacht, Sports and the Media said: “Each level of the Plan to Live with Covid-19 contains a ‘basket’ of measures that are collectively intended to help reduce risk. transmission in line with the level of risk at that time.
“The level of risk at this time has meant that some activities such as live music or dancing at weddings have not been allowed.”
The news comes when 256 new cases of Covid19 and six more deaths have been identified.
The Taoiseach said “personal responsibility” will be key to keeping cases low after the holiday period.
“Personal and collective responsibility is going to be central to all this, without a doubt, there are risks associated with this, so personal behavior is very important,” said Micheál Martin.
“We cannot predict what kind of action we will take in a given scenario, it is kept under review, and I cannot overstate the importance of personal behavior during the Christmas period.”
Mr. Martin added that he feels that the arrival of the vaccine will not cause people to ignore the guidelines, but stay the course for a few more weeks, knowing that the stricter guidelines will soon come to an end.
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