To have a beautiful, well-organized wedding celebration usually
requires months of painstaking preparation. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic
shook up all those carefully laid plans. Though they had to contend with
pandemic restrictions to pull it off, local couples found ways to make their
wedding days special and safe for them and their loved ones.
Jeremiah and Krystine Opinion
As they stared down their impending May 2020 wedding date,
Jeremiah and Krystine Opinion knew they had a decision to make, but didn’t know
what to do. So they prayed a novena to St. Rita, a patroness of impossible
causes, whose feast day, May 22, was their planned wedding date. “The answer we
kept getting was to keep our date,” said Krystine. “As we got closer to our
wedding day, the more we realized the most important part is to be able to hold
onto the sacrament instead of the party part of our wedding.”
Thanks to livestreaming, even more people could see the wedding
than they originally planned, including relatives in Europe and the
Philippines. In person at St. Leo the Great Church in Fairfax, their immediate
families and Father David A. Whitestone, pastor, witnessed them exchanging
vows. Friends and family members then greeted them in the parking lot, where
they danced their first dance as husband and wife to a tune played from a
Bluetooth speaker.
“Right after we left the church, we were surrounded by love,”
said Jeremiah.
In October, they had a bigger celebration on the date of both of
their parents’ anniversaries. They started the day with a vow renewal Mass at
St Leo, then celebrated at a restaurant in Manassas. After all the speeches,
the couple announced to their parents and all the guests that they were
expecting.
“We got to celebrate our own marriage along with both of our
parents who have helped us get to where we are now. It felt really good to
share that with everyone,” said Jeremiah. He noticed there was another perk of
two celebrations, too. “What girl doesn't want to wear their wedding dress
twice?”
Cindy and Fredys Vasquez
It was a difficult few months for Cindy Vasquez. At the start of
2020, both her grandmothers died. Then her parents contracted and eventually
recovered from COVID-19. Then she and her fiancé Fredys decided to postpone
their wedding, moving it from June 20, the anniversary of their first date, to
Oct. 10. They spent the summer rearranging all the details, including reducing
the guest list from a 130-person celebration down to 50 people.
But they were grateful for how their wedding turned out, that
their closest family members were there for the ceremony at Queen of Apostle
Church in Alexandria, that the date was close to the feast days of Our Lady of
Fatima and St. John Paul II, and that Fredys’ grandmother was able to travel
from El Salvador to attend.
“It was a beautiful ceremony,” said Cindy. “When we realized it
was the end of the day, we couldn’t believe that so much planning and so much
hassle went into it and everything went by so quickly. We were very happy. I
felt my two grandmothers were there with me that day so that was very special.”
Though they had hoped to get married earlier, God had better
plans, said Cindy. “We did remember June 20, but we celebrated with even
greater joy on October 10,” she said. “Being able to see how many things we
were able to overcome and see that God was there made it a lot better.”
Liza Karlin and Chris Maggio
Elizabeth “Liza” Karlin and Chris Maggio met and fell in love at
Our Lady, Queen of Peace Church in Arlington. They looked forward to sharing
their beloved church with extended family and friends at their wedding, set for
Sept. 5, 2020.
“We began our planning in December of 2019 — and, of course,
began shifting plans in March of 2020,” said Liza, who’s from New Orleans. “At first, we just took a wait-and-hope
approach. We really thought maybe we wouldn't have to change too much,” she
said.
But by late spring or early summer, “we realized our wedding
would be very different than expected. We just couldn't ask people to travel
and risk contracting COVID and bringing it back to their families.
“In the end, it was just 13 of us there in person: 10 beloved
friends, Chris, Father Tim (Hickey) and me,” Liza said. Everyone present participated
in the ceremony. And they were able to have a few members of one of the
church’s choirs sing. “The music was exactly what we would have done with a
full church and a full choir,” she said. “And I was still able to distribute
Communion, as I'd hoped.”
Chris’ sister and brother-in-law were there, but many other
family members and friends, including Liza’s mom, cousins and aunts in New
Orleans, participated via livestream.
“They told us later they had small, local watch parties,” Liza
said. “They felt like they were there; they got to know us and our family and
friends through the chat function.
“We felt deeply loved and supported,” she said, and both “ended
the day married to our best friend.”
Leslie Miller contributed to this article.