Love in a Pandemic

The months and the weeks and the days leading up to your wedding are supposed to be some of the funnest and most carefree of your life.

You’ve finally — FINALLY — found the love of your life.

After all that swiping, an endless parade of bad first dates and mediocre glasses of wine and conversations that went nowhere and heartbreak as you careened blindly down the pothole strewn road to Happily Ever After in the digital age, the finish line is at long last in sight.

Finally, you found the person who makes you a better version of yourself every single day, and you’re gonna throw the party to end all parties to celebrate them and the fact that you never have to download another dating app.

In your mind, the days roll out like the charmed yellow brick road that you’ve heard being engaged was like, life milestones neatly getting checked off like boxes on a to-do list.

Picking out the venue and sampling the various caterers, trying to pick the best possible beef and chicken and desserts within your price range. The bachelor and bachelorette party; the bridal shower; the picking out of your dress or your suit; the whimsical photo shoot for your save-the-dates; the anticipation leading up to the big day; the romantic honeymoon.

A dream, right?

You meticulously plan the big day together that your bride has spent her life dreaming about, the one that she deserves.

Then 2020 happens and upends your best laid plans. Love in a pandemic is a lot of things, but carefree and whimsical it is not.

Months go by and those boxes that you were supposed to tick off one by one evolve.

The bachelor/bachelorette parties become the first thing to go, but you rationalize that because hey, you can live it up with your buddies next year.

The whimsical photoshoot turns into a partially masked, socially distant affair.

The shower? Absolutely not, plus like everything else, you can do it next year and the dishes you have work just fine for now.

The months pass, the pandemic refuses to abate, you spend far too much time checking for updates on what states are on the travel ban and what restrictions might be in place.

She starts to worry.

Conversations are less about gauging your loved ones’ formal attire preferences and more about gauging their comfort level with going through with a wedding.

Then one day you’re faced with a choice — Do you call the whole thing off and punt to next year or do you do a micro version of your big day and turn that big beautiful wedding you had planned into the vow renewal to end all vow renewals when it’s safe?

Suddenly, the save the dates — masked, of course because tis the year for it — come with a revision and a promise. Join us virtually this year, and we’ll dance like there’s no tomorrow when it’s safe to, we promise.

We fret over these things all the while knowing how lucky we are. We’ve both held onto our jobs. Neither of us nor any of our close family members has contracted the virus. Our relationship has held up through two moves and planning a wedding with roughly a half dozen backup options in the event that restrictions wind up getting rolled back. Even now, a few days out, we’re still not entirely sure where the ceremony is going to take place, only that we are, in fact, getting married this week.

That’s fine. There are bigger problems in the world. We’re lucky. We’re going to be stronger for it.

Love in a pandemic challenges you. It breaks your heart and stresses you out, but love in a pandemic also steels your resolve.

Her big day isn’t going to be the big day she dreamed about, the wedding she deserves.

But the life that the two of you are going to build, together, you’re even more determined than ever to make it bigger and stronger and brighter than she ever thought possible. The big day itself isn’t what’s important in the grand scheme of things — It’s how you live your lives together in the days after that counts.

See you at the finish line babe, wherever that may be.