Bride-to-be Frederique Dimech is settling last-minute preparations for her wedding, yet one important person is missing – her fiancé.
“The venue, the photographer and the catering are booked, my dress and the bridesmaids’ outfits are ready but my fiancé, Christopher, cannot enter the country despite being fully vaccinated,” Dimech said.
From Wednesday (today), all travellers arriving in Malta must present a recognised vaccine certificate or quarantine.
The health authorities are only recognising local vaccine certificates, UK-issued NHS COVID passes and the EU COVID pass, provided a holder's vaccines are among those approved by the European Medicines Authority.
No CDC approval yet
The couple who have Gozitan parents who moved to the US, live in Pennsylvania. They are fully vaccinated with EMA-approved Pfizer/Moderna and have US CDC vaccine cards.
Yet, while the vaccine is approved by the health authorities, Malta currently does not accept CDC certificates. The new restriction has left the 23-year-old speechless, especially after the couple re-scheduled their wedding three times due to the pandemic.
We spent over €10,000 on preparations, so to now cancel would be greatly upsetting
From August, to December, to September
The couple, who have been together for seven years and grew up together, planned their wedding for August 2020. However, due to the pandemic and uncertainty, they then postponed it to December.
“By December, the US went into lockdown, so we decided to postpone the wedding for another year, this time to September 3,” she said.
While Dimech flew to Malta in June to help her mother plan the wedding, Christopher and his family were unable to fly earlier due to work commitments.
“Christopher has flights booked a week before the wedding while his family were planning to arrive a bit earlier. All are fully vaccinated and Maltese citizens but now are not allowed to come here.”
Dimech is upset that she might have to cancel the wedding if restrictions do not change, especially since elderly Maltese relatives might not be fit enough to travel to the United States if they decide to marry there.
“We spent over €10,000 on wedding preparations, so to now cancel would be greatly upsetting, especially when you think that unvaccinated tourists were offered €300 to come to Malta,” she said.
“Why must we suffer?”