Can you hire someone to do on-site COVID testing at a wedding?
This was the question I had when in January 2022, I reached out to nine companies that offer COVID testing services. I was curious because offering on-site testing is one of many tools that couples can use to host a wedding that prioritizes health, safety, and joy.
What did I learn? The short answer is yes, you can hire someone to do on-site COVID testing at a wedding. The longer answer is that doing so is expensive and it can be surprisingly hard to find someone who will take your money.
However, there are options here — including one company I talked to who will arrange getting a bunch of over-the-counter tests for you and your partner if on-site testing isn’t a good fit. Keep reading to learn more.
Here’s who I contacted
In January 2022, I reached out to the following COVID-19 testing companies:
Here’s who I heard back from
As of publishing, here’s who I heard back from:
On January 17, 2022, Daisy Health and I had an interview. I spoke with founders Wells Childress and Peter Conley for 41 minutes over the phone. I’ve shared what I learned in that interview in the section below.
On January 26, 2022, I had a call scheduled with a representative at The COVID Clinic. This person did not call me and I had no number to call them. When I reached out via email, The COVID Clinic paired me with a new representative. As of publishing, this person has not scheduled a new call with me.
On January 31, 2022, Curative told me they don’t do private events. Per a statement issued to me by Curative: “Curative’s business model provides testing to the public, businesses offering testing to their employees, or organizations conducting mass testing. We do not contract with individuals for private events.”
On February 1, 2022, Clear emailed me for general details about my event. I re-explained who I was and what this story was for. As of publishing, they have not returned my email.
Here are the questions I asked
If you are interested in arranging on-site COVID testing for your wedding, here are the interview questions I used and the ones I recommend you ask, too. Where relevant, I included details from my research including the interview I had with the founders of Daisy Health.
What type of testing services are provided by your team? The one company willing and available to talk to me, Daisy Health, offers two testing services related to weddings. The on-site one is called their “concierge” service. It’s where a nurse (or nurses) literally show up at a wedding. They use a spot at the venue — with a room indoors or a space outside — to conduct on-site rapid tests.
Daisy Health also offers another service where they provide over-the-counter (OTC) tests for guests and/or vendors to take themselves before heading to the wedding. To help facilitate this type of testing, Daisy Health offers an option where a Daisy Health nurse can either host a virtual office hour where the nurse walks the group through how to take their tests and/or offers private consultations.Are those tests on the FDA-approved list? In my experience, the testing companies make this abundantly clear but still, good to cross-check.
Who will be administering the tests? Daisy Health told me “nurses” and when I asked what they meant when they used that word they said “RNs.” This was good enough for me.
Do you provide services in the area where the wedding is being hosted? This is important as there might be a travel fee. Daisy Health primarily works in New York City, Texas, and Florida but has offered services nationally including in California and the Pacific Northwest. Some of the other companies I reached out to but didn’t hear back from looked to be regional per their websites.
How quickly will the people who take the tests receive answers? Per my conversation with Daisy Health, people who take their rapid tests have answers within 5 to 15 minutes of taking the test.
What happens if someone tests negative? For the on-site, concierge level of service, Daisy Health gives a ticket to anyone who takes a test. When the person comes back to get their test results they return the ticket to the nurse to get their results.
If the results are negative, the person then gets a card. The card becomes the person’s passport to any wedding-related activities. Daisy Health co-founder Peter Conley said they’ve had cards that feature a couple’s names, monogram, or other decoration so the card becomes a part of the wedding.
What happens if someone tests positive? Per my conversation with Daisy Health, if someone tests positive during their services, a nurse on-site will conduct a secondary test (this is why Daisy Health recommends couples budget for 5 to 10 percent more tests than they have people testing).
If the second test comes back positive, the nurse advises the person to return to a private space to isolate and schedule an appointment to get a test locally. A Daisy Health nurse can also conduct a PCR test on-site for an additional cost.
A person with a positive result does not get a card to enter the wedding-related activities. If you foresee people trying to lie or make a scene over bad news, this is where hiring a third-party for the entrance of the wedding may be of use.Who reports a positive case to the local health authorities? This was unclear to me in my research (and, admittedly, is unclear in general as county and state governments continue to adapt to changing needs).
If it’s a value to you and your partner to make sure the positive case is reported, ask the testing company for advice on how to go about this in a way that also values the privacy of the person who tested positive.
Can vendors take tests, too? Daisy Health doesn’t care whom a couple provides tests for; they just need the headcount and that headcount can include guests, vendors, anyone on-site at the wedding.
Is there anything you need me to provide you ahead of time? The answer here seems to be that after an initial consultation or screening conversation, the answer is universally “no, just your money please.”
How long will you be on-site? Daisy Health recommends their service providers be on-site for three hours. The actual testing takes much less time.
Daisy Health co-founder Peter Conley referenced a recent wedding Daisy Health did.
In this situation, the couple told the 150 people they were asking to test to arrive at the wedding venue an hour before the ceremony to take an on-site COVID test. Per the couple’s request, Daisy Health set up the testing station outside of the wedding venue.
The couple provided tables, chairs, and a tent for the testing station. They also arranged appetizers and drinks for people to enjoy as a pre-ceremony happy hour between getting tested and getting their results. Testing became part of the wedding and, per Conley, was extremely well-received by all in attendance.How much will this cost? Daisy Health quoted me a range of prices for their two different tiers of services.
For the on-site, concierge service, an average cost is $55 to $75 per person getting tested. That price includes the test and the labor of the nurse(s) and it varies depending on the location (further away from a major metro city = more money). and the size of the event (events with fewer than 50 people being tested would cost $85 per test).
For the option where Daisy Health provides OTC tests, the cost is between $15 to $30 per testing kit. If you also want to hire a Daisy Health nurse for a virtual office hour, that costs $325 per hour. A self-guided instructional video on how to take the OTC test comes part of the standard package.
The above prices are in-line with what I saw posted online from other testing companies. For example, AllClear Healthcare says their on-site testing options start at $85 per person while, per this April 2021 article by The Knot, Sameday Health quotes $112.50 per person for a similar tier of service.
Unfortunately, these prices mean that on-site testing remains an expensive line item for a wedding. For example, to test 100 people on-site at a wedding would likely cost $7,500.Can we have people pay for themselves? I asked this of Daisy Health because I was curious if we could apply the same logic of a cash bar to on-site testing at weddings.
“We would try to avoid that,” said co-funder Wells Childress. “We can accept on-site credit card payments, but it really just kind of disrupts the flow a lot. It makes it feel much more transactional and much less like, you know, a concierge service.”
Will people be weirded out if I ask them to test at a wedding? Daisy Health said this is the no. 1 concern they hear from couples but that, nearly universally, they’ve had great interactions before, during, and after a wedding.
“We’ve never run into an issue,” said Conley. “We’ve had a great response with a lot of repeat customers. We have had people use [Daisy Health] for a wedding and then use it again for birthdays, company events, things like that. We’ve also had a lot of referrals.”
As someone who regularly engages in challenging conversations about COVID, I’ll share that this overwhelming positive response doesn’t surprise me. I can count on one hand the number of times someone’s been hostile when I ask very specific questions about COVID health and safety.
In fact, more often than not, the person I’m talking to is thrilled that I’m even mentioning COVID at all. They want to enjoy themselves at the wedding as much as I do and so they’re relieved to have a conversation about how I can help prioritize their health and safety as well as my own.
“I think there's a level of comfortability that comes from the wedding party and also just everyone, all the attendees knowing,” said Conley. “It is fun to see when you have people waiting to get in and then they get in. Everyone inside.. it’s like a weight has been lifted off and let’s just have a good time.”