Lockdown easing delay: Blow for weddings and arts

A bride-to-be says she has "been through hell" after having to re-arrange her wedding four times because of coronavirus.

All restrictions were due to be lifted on 21 June but could now be postponed by four weeks.

Sue Clark, from Swindon, wanted 65 guests, including her terminally ill mother, to see her get married at the town's registry office in July.

But current restrictions mean weddings are restricted to 30 guests.

Ms Clark's mother, Diona, 60, has Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), with pulmonary thrombosis and lung cancer.

The 41-year-old said: "My mum was told she has 12 months to live.

"She was in the hospital bed and she said it was her wish to see us married, so we went straight to the registry office and booked... that was 3 April 2020.

"The registry office has been brilliant, we've not had to pay any extra, but the venue and for the honeymoon, we've had to pay a fair bit extra for those."

Ms Clark said she and her fiancé, Richard Harding, 41, had decided to go ahead with their wedding on 10 July with fewer guests, due to her mother's declining health.

Wedding businesses are struggling too with the uncertainty. Elmore Court in Gloucestershire is owned and run by Anselm Guise and before the first national lockdown in March 2020 he employed nearly 80 staff.

He now employs just 10 and estimates he has lost about £500,000 in earnings.

"For us it's been incredibly bad, two fold really.

"It's the emotional and well-being impact not just for me and my team but also for all our couples because they've obviously had so much uncertainty over such a big occasion in their lives as well as a lot of investment from family members and the rest of it."

He said some couples had postponed four times while others had lost family members while having to wait to attend the wedding, which was "heart-breaking".

Since the announcement was made about lockdown restrictions ending his venue was "ram-packed" with bookings averaging four per week.

"Any announcement today that means that we can't do what we were planning means that we have put a lot of energy and money into something that we cannot not fully do.

"It's been up and down and really stressful."

He said he hoped the prime minister would lift some restrictions for weddings or make some acknowledgement that larger venues can accommodate more than 30 people safely.

He said he thought capacity limits, regarding how many guests could be safely accommodated, should be guided by the size of the venue too.

Weddings are not the only events to have suffered.

Theatres and cinemas reopened in England on 17 May with reduced capacity and social distancing measures in place.

Bristol Old Vic's artistic director Tom Morris said while he was not worried about his own theatre, thanks to funding from the government's Culture Recovery Fund, he feared "huge new losses" for other parts of the entertainment industry if full reopening was postponed.

"Big commercial theatres, operating without insurance, are in a far harder position," he said.

"And if the extension is more than three or four weeks, more and more smaller theatres across the West Country will start to see their plans tumbling into ruins."

Mr Morris said he accepted that public safety "has to be the priority" but called on the government to have support in place for those who had been pinning their hopes on 21 June.

The Brewhouse Theatre, in Taunton, is run as a not-for-profit organisation.

Chief executive, Amy Bere, said news of the potential delay was "obviously disappointing".

Ms Bere said they were now "rescheduling" the large events they had hoped to run at full capacity next week, but said they were still able to operate to about a third of their capacity.

In Yeovil, Somerset, the Octagon Theatre and Westlands Entertainment Venue is run and owned by South Somerset District Council.

A spokesperson for the local authority said more delays would have a "significant impact".

The Westlands venue was taken over by the council in 2016 which invested £1.8m to refurbish the building.

The council said its long-term viability remained unaffected as it had been able to adapt by hosting meetings and screenings instead and both venues have received grants from the Culture Recovery Fund.

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