Maskless Ohio Wedding Leaves Nearly Half The 80 Guests With COVID

The bride and groom admitted that they didn’t care to enforce masks because they wanted to have fun

Prepare yourself to feel all levels of rage and disbelief at this story. It’s got everything: a large wedding in a state with a high positivity rate, zero masks, and a selfish bride and groom who seem to just shrug off the entire affair being responsible for almost half of their wedding guests getting sick with COVID. Yeah, you’re going to want to take some deep breaths before diving in.

First things first: the wedding took place in October, and more than two weeks later over 30 wedding guests have tested positive for COVID-19. There were 83 guests total at the Cincinnati-area wedding, including all of the bride and groom’s grandparents. And while masks were encouraged and provided, no one wore one. The bride, Mikayla Bishop, noticed the absence of mask-wearing at the start of the wedding.

“I’m walking down the aisle,” she told WLWT. “We can’t do anything now.”

She and her husband also contracted COVID-19. Because this is what happens during large, indoor gatherings during a pandemic — particularly when no one wears a mask.

“I didn’t think that almost half of our wedding guests were gonna get sick,” Bishop said. “You’re in the moment. You’re having fun. You don’t think about Covid anymore.”

Aww. Yeah. Weddings should be fun! BUT TO HAVE ONE AT ALL DURING A DEATHLY PLAGUE IS AN IRRESPONSIBLE, SELFISH THING TO DO. And then to admit that you “don’t think about Covid anymore” because you’re too busy doing the Electric Slide two inches apart from Grandma Irene while infectious droplets are being circulated around your reception hall is just… next level.

This isn’t the first wedding to become a super spreader event. A small wedding in Maine this summer led to almost 200 cases of COVID-19 and seven deaths. Those that died didn’t even attend the wedding. Another wedding, a 300-person affair in Washington state, resulted in 17 guests testing positive and two separate outbreaks.

Mikayla’s husband, Anthony, seemed nonplussed about everyone at the wedding forgoing masks. “When I saw everyone not wearing masks I was just like, ‘Oh, well I guess we’re just gonna kinda go with it I guess,'” Anthony Bishop said.

Yeah. *deep breaths*

After driving to North Carolina for their honeymoon, the bride and groom developed symptoms. Anthony said he lost his sense of taste and smell, and his new bride was so sick she could barely get off the couch. Soon after, family members began contacting the couple about feeling sick and testing positive for the virus.

“Every single day we’re getting a call. Oh here’s another person. Here’s another person. Here’s another person. And it starts to take a toll on you,” Mikayla Bishop said.

It. Starts. To. Take. A. Toll. On. You. YOU DON’T SAY. Listen, I’m sure they’re wracked with guilt and wouldn’t wish this virus on the friends and family they invited to their wedding. And they’re going to have to live with the consequences of this for the rest of their lives. But let this be a lesson — don’t hold a wedding like this. Don’t attend a wedding like this. Not right now, not anytime this winter, and not until health officials deem it safe.

Can you still get married? Sure, safely. Have a socially-distant ceremony with just you and your future spouse. Make it legal. Don’t have the giant celebration until you can do so without killing people, please. PLEASE. Because the fact of the matter is, you could possibly get very lucky and have a wedding reception where no one falls ill amid spiking cases and overwhelmed hospitals. But you can’t guarantee it. So why risk it?

First-responders and frontline workers are literally begging us to not do things like this because ICUs are so full, many are almost at capacity. And when they’re at capacity, people start to die. Not just COVID patients, either. Soon people begin to die of preventable things because they’re not getting the care they otherwise would if hospitals and healthcare systems weren’t overwhelmed.

Your party can wait.

The Bishops admit they “felt guilty” about guests getting sick, especially their grandparents. “What’s crazy is that our grandparents were the only ones that wore a mask the whole time. They actually wore their mask except for when they were eating their dinner,” Mikayla Bishop said.

Because when no one else is wearing a mask in a room full of 83 people, the handful of people wearing one are still at a disadvantage. Particularly when people are dancing, exerting themselves, and breathing heavily in a large group indoors with zero social distancing.

“That’s what was maybe the super spreader is the dance floor,” Mikayla Bishop said. “Everybody’s in each other’s face and there’s no masks.”