Wedding couples should soon be able to celebrate with as many guests as they would like as Boris Johnson is reportedly set to announce next week the removing of limits from June 21.
In a huge boost for frustrated brides and grooms, the PM is set to give the green light to weddings with more than 30 guests with ministers increasingly confident of getting on top of the Indian Covid variant.
On Friday, Mr Johnson gave yet another signal that the June 21 "freedom day", when social distancing rules and other Covid laws are set to be scrapped, will go ahead.
This is despite the surge in cases related to the Indian Covid variant, with the ONS reporting the first signs that the virus is on the rise again in the UK.
The prime minister said he would give the public an update “by the end of the month” on results of the review into relaxing social distancing rules.
“I am still seeing nothing in the data that leads me to think that we’re going to have to deviate from the roadmap,” he said, signalling his confidence that the Indian variant will not derail his plans.
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And the Daily Telegraph reports government sources as saying they were confident that large-scale weddings would be allowed, as long as the data on the Indian variant did not get out of hand
They said confidence about the safety of weddings involving more than 30 people had grown following test events - where just 15 people tested positive for Covid-19 out of 58,000 attendees.
A Whitehall source told the paper: “There’s increasing confidence that vaccines are working against all variants, and the data doesn’t seem to be changing too drastically in terms of case numbers and hospitalisations.
"As long as there are no significant changes over the next few days, there is cautious optimism.”
The government is set to give a formal update on the Indian variant next week. The results of two reviews will then follow: one into the future of social distancing, the other about the viability of a Covid certification scheme.
Johnson has played down the prospect of vaccine passports or negative test certificates being widely used.
“I don’t see any prospect of certificates to go into pubs or anything else,” he said.
Pressed on the outcome of the social distancing review, he said: “We will let people know as much as we possibly can by the end of the month about weddings, for instance.”
It is a striking change of tone a week after Johnson warned the Indian variant could “seriously disrupt” the roadmap.
There are "early signs" of a potential rise in the proportion of people testing positive for coronavirus in England, new figures show.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, published on Friday, show that around one in 1,110 people in private households in England had Covid-19 in the week to May 15 - up from one in 1,340 the previous week.
The coronavirus reproduction number, or R value, in England has also risen slightly to between 0.9 to 1.1, up from between 0.8 and 1 last week, according to the latest Government figures.
It comes after the latest official figures showed that cases of the Indian variant of coronavirus in the UK have risen by more than 2,000 in the space of a week.
But while the ONS said that there were "early signs of a potential increase", it stressed that rates were low and it was too soon to say if the rise was the start of a trend.
Mr Johnson said on Friday: "We will be letting everybody know exactly what sort of arrangements to expect for June 21.
"I am still seeing nothing in the data that leads me to think that we're going to have to deviate from the road map - obviously we must remain cautious but I'm seeing nothing that makes me think we have to deviate.
"But on June 21 and vaccine certification - or Covid status certification I should say - people should bear in mind that I don't see any prospect of certificates to go into pubs or anything else."
Pressed on whether the public will continue to be asked to wear masks, Mr Johnson replied: "All the details we'll try and let people know by the end of the month about exactly where we think we'll be on June 21, Step 4."
