What We Know About Cynthia Bailey’s Pandemic Wedding — & How Much RHOA Will Show

The #CHill wedding is about to hit our TV screens at last. During season 12 of The Real Housewives of Atlanta, Cynthia Bailey and Mike Hill (or as she calls them, "CHill") got engaged. And on season 13, which premieres December 6, we'll get to see Cynthia's RHOA wedding. Well, some of it. A certain ongoing pandemic seems to have affected the show's original plans.

To backtrack a little bit, Cynthia and Mike first got engaged in July 2019, as shown in season 12. Cynthia announced in October 2019 that she wanted to have her wedding on October 10, 2020 (she likes the date 10/10/20), and also said that she would have another televised wedding. Her wedding to ex-husband Peter Thomas was featured on the season 3 finale.

But in October 2019, we didn't know what we know now. Season 13 ended up filming entirely during the COVID-19 pandemic, which reportedly changed the plans for shooting Cynthia's wedding. According to TMZ, when Cynthia and Mike had to move their wedding indoors at the last minute due to Hurricane Delta, the show's production decided not to send a crew because of COVID concerns. TMZ reports that Cynthia had her own camera crew and will provide footage for the show.

Because of this, it's unclear at this point how much of the actual wedding we will get on screen. (The trailer shows that there will be plenty of the wild bachelorette party, though.) But, we do know quite a bit about Cynthia's wedding already thanks to interviews and Instagram posts. We've already seen Cynthia's dress, her Housewives bridesmaids, and her guests from the Bravo universe, and heard more about how the role the pandemic played.

Cynthia went big with her dress, wearing a sparkly, see-through, blush-colored gown with a matching headpiece. "When we met & you asked me what I wanted, I honestly had no idea," Cynthia wrote on Instagram of working with designer Nneka C. Alexander of Brides by Nona. "I only knew that I didn’t want to wear white. I gave you complete creative control, and you absolutely blew away."

For the reception, Cynthia changed into a white dress a bedazzled panels down the side. Her bridesmaids all wore white and from photos it appears that guests were asked to wear black.

Some of the Atlanta Housewives served as Cynthia's bridesmaids. Kenya Moore, Kandi Burruss, and former Housewife Eva Marcille made the cut. The other bridesmaids were Lisa Morris, Cynthia's sister Malorie Bailey-Massie, and her niece Madison Bailey-Lathon. It's pretty obvious who wasn't there. *Cough* NeNe Leakes *Cough*

In addition to the Housewives who were in the wedding party, there were other Bravo stars in attendance at the nuptials. Present and past RHOA stars Marlo Hampton, Porsha Williams, Shamea Morton, Shereé Whitfield, and Claudia Jordan were all there. From The Real Housewives of Potomac, Gizelle Bryant and Karen Huger showed up. Quad Webb represented for Married to Medicine.

According to an exclusive with People, Cynthia's wedding had 250 guests in attendance. Obviously, that is a lot of people to be inside of a venue during a pandemic, and Cynthia spoke to the magazine about her and Mike's efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19. In addition to guests' temperatures being checked upon arrival, Cynthia said, "Everyone has to wash their hands before coming inside and we will have hand sanitizing stations throughout the venue. And everyone must be wearing a mask at all times, it's not optional."

It's that last part that was easily questioned once Cynthia's high-profile guests started posting pictures from the wedding on social media. In the photos, you can see a mix of people with masks and without. On their show Bravo's Chat Room, Porsha and Gizelle talked about their time at the wedding, and their words didn't necessarily add up with what is shown in the photos. "I know she got into a little trouble with social media and this wedding, but she took major precautions," Gizelle said. Porsha added, "Nobody got into a tiff, but I still had to tell a couple people, 'Put your mask on!'"

Hopefully, no one got sick because of the wedding (a few weeks after the wedding Cynthia told Page Six she hadn't heard about anyone testing positive), but we'll have to wait and see how those precautions come across on screen. Or if we see much of the wedding at all. With the backlash about the sometimes-mask-less indoor wedding, everyone might be better off with only select moments being shown. Things would probably be much more #CHill that way.