📷: Getty Images
With weddings restrictions starting to ease in Rhode Island (ICYMI: catered events currently allow for fifty guests outdoors or thirty guests indoors), it feels like both couples and vendors alike can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.
This is in large part thanks to the unwavering efforts of the the Rhode Island Coalition of Wedding and Event Professionals (RICWEP) who held a mock wedding at OceanCliff at the end of January to showcase how weddings can be safely held under current guidelines. The coalition filmed the affair and put together a training video to help other local event professionals operate. Sponsored in part by Rhode Island Commerce, the video was produced by Montage Media Productions with accompanying photography by Sara Zarrella Photography. See a preview here.
“This is a great partnership with Rhode Island Commerce and the Department of Health, the Department of Business Regulation and the Providence Warwick Convention and Visitors Bureau,” says Luke Renchan, a RICWEP task force leader and the owner of Luke Renchan Entertainment. “The video demonstrates how event professionals put RICWEP’s phased action plan into action in coordination with the state’s public health measures. The enhanced safety protocols lay the foundation for a safer and more successful 2021 for weddings and events in Rhode Island.”
Rhode Island Commerce also praises of the endeavor.
“It’s important that we find more and more ways for our small businesses to open and operate safely,” says Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor. “We are proud to have partnered with the Coalition of Wedding and Event Professionals as it has worked tirelessly and creatively to produce this video and to provide support to this professional community. Public health conditions permitting, we will utilize this tool as we work to enable the incremental reopening of this key industry.”
Cheers to our innovative and resilient local wedding industry and to all the spectacular celebrations that are now sure to come! 🥂