Town hall weddings frequently feature the town crier “crying” – or announcing – the wedding from the Butter Market steps, and then leading the happy couple away to their reception and general celebrations.
But – though the town hall has performed three weddings so far under lockdown rules – they have been far from normal, and the instructions and restrictions are complex and in line with a lot of current government guidelines frequently changing.
But common factors in a lot of these guidelines are “don’t touch”, “keep your distance”, “don’t spread the virus by mixing with other people”, and “track who you’re mixing with” – just in case you need to trace them later because the virus had been lurking, but was unseen.
And in practice this sounds simple enough, but it can get complicated when there are changing limits on the numbers who can be present – particularly if it depends on what household or bubble you may be deemed to belong to.
So the three weddings to date in the town hall have not been easy to organise, may have involved some “crying” – but not by the town crier – but possibly by the town clerk, and probably well out of sight.
But next week town clerk Richard Farhall will explain the rules and how things have worked out to date – but you know the problem with weddings is…
Image Credits: K. Bird .
Our Town Crier is fabulous! If you’d like to see what a socially distanced ‘remote cry’ looks like, this week we made this video https://youtu.be/a4juL4HU5qI (wind noise was a bit of an issue, you might want the sound down a bit).
It features the roaring Paul Goring by the river crying to an audience of sheep in the field because the Covid-19 risk assessment didn’t allow for the cry to be held in town. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!
Of course, the sheep weren’t our intended audience, so if you know someone who might benefit from joining our coworking community? Please share 🙂