Australian health authorities last month confirmed seven cases of COVID-19, traced back to a wedding that reportedly took place in Bali on March 21, days after Prime Minister Scott Morrison urged Australians to avoid traveling overseas.

On March 27, the New South Wales government confirmed in their daily COVID-19 statistics that “seven cases have been confirmed from a wedding in Bali,” two of whom are local residents of the southeastern Australian state while five others are interstate residents. 

With the story going viral today and picked up by local and international news outlets, we couldn’t help but do a little internet sleuthing, which brought us to the bride’s social media accounts. There, we found wedding photos posted from around late March, which geotagged Villa Shalimar in Canggu.

The bride posted a public photo of the wedding ceremony on Facebook on March 21, along with the caption: “Marrying in the most beautiful Bali villa with some of our nearest and dearest!”

From the photo, it appears that the wedding was attended by at least two dozen people. It is unclear whether the newlyweds were among the confirmed cases, though reports from Australian news outlets suggest that those who were infected were guests. Those reports also say that the newlyweds invited some 120 people to the wedding, but it seems most did not show up due to the pandemic. 

Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a level-three travel advice on March 13 for the country, urging Australians to reconsider travel as the risks of the coronavirus continued to escalate. At the time, Australia had confirmed COVID-19 cases in every one of its states and territories. 

The Australian government then updated their travel restriction to the highest level on March 18, telling its citizens: “do not travel overseas.”

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