The Covid-19 pandemic hasn’t been a good time for everyone.

Especially to couples who can’t wait to get married and people who can’t fully concentrate on mourning the passing of loved ones.

But if you’re a couple who’s been putting your big day off, or you have a loved one who just passed away, I have some good news for you:

Restrictions On Marriage To Be Lifted From Next Week

Previously, you’re only allowed to have 20 people on location to witness your solemnisation ceremony.

From 4 Aug 2020 (which, by the way, is next Tuesday) onwards, it’s set to increase:

• Wedding solemnisation will have their capacity increased to 50. This figure includes the couple but excludes the solemniser and the vendors; Meaning you can have 48 friends watch you get legally married to the love of your life.
• The capacity increase* is applicable to:
  • the Registry of Marriage (ROM)
  • places of worship
  • common areas of public housing
  • and other venues

*Provided the venue’s capacity limit (after implementing safety measures) is enough.

Okay, I lied; not everybody gets 48 guests.

If you’re holding your wedding solemnisation at home, the limit of 10 people still applies since a house (especially in Singapore) is so much smaller – even if you live in a mansion because Ah Gong doesn’t know where you live.

But that’s not the most exciting news for couples about to get married.

For those who’ve been wanting a grand affair (or as grand as you can with this pandemic happening), you can.

MOH also says it’ll “launch a pilot programme” where wedding couples can have a wedding reception, with food and drinks, for up to 50 attendees in hotels or restaurants.

The Pilot

Other than wedding couples, venue operators and owners are also required to implement and enforce safe management measures like the size of the gathering.

The multiagency task force will monitor and observe the situation, as well as assess the capability of operators and owners here in complying with the measures.

Then, the task force will take this pilot’s results into consideration when deciding on whether to ease further or put the restrictions back into place.

In other words, for those who are holding a wedding reception, please don’t spoil market. You’re not just destroying the wedding dreams of many women out there; it might just affect other large-scale events too.

But now you’re wondering: is this considered the wedding dinner you’ve been planning to have, because you really want that ang bao money?

It’s not revealed, so you can ask the hotels or restaurants about it if you still intend to have a wedding dinner during a pandemic.

Wakes & Funerals

Similarly, only 20 people were allowed to attend wakes or funerals currently.

From 4 Aug 2020 onwards, the capacity will be increased to 30 people.

This, MOH says, will help to facilitate for more friends and relatives of the deceased to pay their last respects.

Similar to wedding solemnisation, this increase in capacity is subjected to the size of the venue.

Again, the task force is monitoring the situation so if you happen to have to go to a wake (my sincerest condolences), please don’t do stuff like this:

While this lifting of measures seems like good news, do note that the task force has mentioned that they would selectively impose restrictions on specific events if a large cluster is formed in that area, and not a broad restriction like a Circuit Breaker.

For example, if three solemnisation ceremonies suddenly contributed to three large clusters, the old restrictions of 20 people per location might be imposed again.

Reader Bao: Does that mean I’d have to get married soon so I can invite more friends to my solemnisation?

If you’ve a girlfriend in the first place. Or friends.

After all, experts have said that if people in Singapore were to obey the rules, Singapore have a “very good chance” to keep daily community cases down to between 10 and 20 successfully until a vaccine is found:

And lest you didn’t know, so far, we’re doing great in recent days.

If you were to look past all the numbers and zoom in on the trend, there’s actually been a drop in the number of community cases.

In the last four days, there were no unlinked community cases. In fact, to add to the happy occasion, they managed to uncover links to 1 previously unlinked case.

Which is really important because if you’ve downloaded our app and read this previous article, you’d know that unlinked cases matter as much as the number of Covid-19 cases reported.

Based on yesterday’s numbers, on average, the number of new cases in the community has decreased, from an average of 9 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 3 per day in the past week.

The number of unlinked cases in the community has also decreased, from an average of 5 cases per day in the week before, to an average of 1 per day in the past week.