The coronavirus pandemic has managed to wreak havoc on pretty much everyone. From workers losing their jobs to kids being home from school, and people having to cancel and postpone their own weddings.
With the CDC recommending gatherings of no more than 50 people for the next eight weeks, brides and grooms with weddings have been scrambling to change their dates. Even couples not within the 8-week span began to panic about whether their date was safe. But while some wanted to make sure they got their dream day with all their friends and family, others decided that as long as they got to get married on their original date—even if it was without all their guests as they originally planned—that was okay by them.
Reilly Jennings, 28, and Amanda Wheeler, 38, were planning to get married in October. And while that’s still a while away, they had no idea what to expect of the pandemic and didn’t want to take any chances. And since they live in New York—the state with the most coronavirus cases to date—they didn’t want to live in uncertainty for months.
“We were really not sure what was going to happen come the fall, and we didn’t want to wait,” Jennings said. “We just wanted to get married.”
At first, they figured they’d just go to the courthouse, but when that also closed, they were at a loss.
“I freaked out, cried a lot, had some wine pretty early in the day and then sort of just tried to think of what are we going to do?” Jennings said. “Amanda was very calm; I was not calm.”
Luckily, after reaching out to their friends, they found out one of them was ordained by the city clerk and was more than willing to marry them—in the next hour and a half.
Jennings was able to borrow a white jumpsuit and within those 90 minutes, they were married on the desolate streets of New York City. The ceremony lasted about three full minutes and people cheered from more than six feet away.
Sorry coronavirus, you can do a lot, but you can’t break up true love.
To hear from the couple themselves, check out the video below.
If you were getting married around this time, what would you do?