Navarra Venues is set to defy NSW government restrictions by reopening its properties next month, with its boss saying he is sick of dealing with “upset brides”.
In a video update on Navarra Venues’ Instagram page yesterday, Sal Navarra said that having been forced to postpone a number of events in recent months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and after the Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend and restaurants opening, the company was taking and “reopening to any numbers”.
“We don’t want to deal with upset brides anymore – upset clients anymore – because it’s not fair on them,” he said.
“The government obviously over the weekend purely showed that they allowed to have 15,000 or 20,000 people there, they had restaurants open that had more than 50 people inside of them.”
Navarra said that provided NSW doesn’t suffer a spike in coronavirus cases over the next 10 days, he would reopen his venues – which include Le Montage in Sydney’s inner-west and heritage castle Curzon Hall – next month.
He said Navarra Venues would also ensure that hand sanitiser would be available to wedding guests, and that other “social-distancing ideas” would be explored.
You can watch the video in full here.
Navarra Venues is also holding “a positive summit in support of our entire industry” tonight at 5:30pm at Le Montage, and is calling on all industry partners, media outlets, suppliers, brides, grooms and everyone with a booked event to attend.
The current NSW government restrictions mean that weddings are restricted to 20 guests, excluding the couple who are getting hitched, as well as the celebrant, a photographer and a videographer.
When asked yesterday by the media whether police would be brought in to break up weddings that aren’t adhering to the rules, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian warned for everyone to remain patient.
“There isn’t much more to wait in terms of making sure that every aspect of businesses that have felt restricted will some have pressure released in the near future,” she said.
“Let’s not forget, and I hate to remind people of this, a lot of the breakouts that happened in NSW were at events like weddings where people came together.”
