Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed that weddings, with up to 150 people, can resume on March 15th—as long as all the attendees get a COVID-19 test. 

“We are very excited about the possibility of reopening venues with testing,” Cuomo said during  Friday’s briefing at the state Capitol. He referred to the successful Buffalo Bills playoff games with fans in limited attendance, “7,000 [fans  were] tested before they went into the stadium. We’ve had virtually no cases of spread from that game.” 

Testing, then, is how different businesses can reopen, he explained, because “we’re not going to have the full vaccines for many months.” He also announced that indoor dining can return to New York City on Valentine’s Day.

Weddings plans will also require approval from local health department. Up to 150 people or 50% of the venue’s capacity can attend, a big deal given the state had banned large weddings last year, prompting lawsuits and appeals.

Cuomo said his reasoning to reopen dining and weddings in the upcoming months is based on models that suggest positivity rates will continue to drop. According to the state’s numbers, NYC’s positivity rate dropped from 7.1% on January 5th to 4.9% on Thursday (NYC’s current seven-day average is 8.74%; remember, the city and state have different numbers), and the governor said studies suggest the number will continue to trend downward. 

However, the resumption of in-person nuptials could be sidetracked by the slow pace of vaccinating New Yorkers and the new, more transmissible variants. Vaccines in development from Novavax and Johnson & Johnson have, respectively,  60% and 57% efficacy against the South African variant. 

The U.S.’s first cases of the South African variant were announced on Thursday by public health officials in South Carolina. Two adults with no travel history and no connection to each other were found to have the variant, suggesting that community spread is already ongoing.

Cuomo acknowledged that he feels the “anxiety” from knowledge of the new variants and evolving information. But he added, “You deal with the facts when you know them. If the numbers change, we change. If the enemy changes, we change. If the infection rate changes, we change. If a variant comes, we change… If the facts change, we will handle it.”