My husband and I weren’t alone in having to choose between postponing our big autumn wedding because of the pandemic, or becoming one of those viral (pun intended) news stories about selfish couples hosting superspreader events.
We chose the former. It was an easy decision, made easier by having plenty of company in the same boat, including friends with wedding dates around the same time who I could text regularly: “Did you decide yet? What is your band saying? Does your family get it?”
It also helped that it was a slow-motion decision process: An October party, indoors in New York City, went from possible to questionable to laughable over the course of the spring. By the summer, we had already negotiated with our venue and vendors to push our party from October to a new date in 2021. All that remained to do was decide if we would still get legally married this year.
We decided to go for it, partly to keep our original anniversary date of October 3 — which we now share with the Obamas, thank you very much — and partially since it seemed unclear whether we would even be able to go forward with our 2021 date. We didn’t want to keep reading pandemic news with the question “When can we get married?” in the back of our minds. And in a year when we had to cede so much control over our lives, it felt good to take back our agency in at least one small domain. We couldn’t have our wedding, but we could start our marriage.
So we scaled back our guest list from the triple digits to the single digits, including only immediate family, half of whom were already sharing a household, and viral spread was low in our area of Long Island at the time. We found a local judge willing to make a house call to perform the civil ceremony, a delightful throwback to a simpler era for weddings.
Clothes take on totemic importance in all weddings, but my wardrobe for this less-conventional ceremony felt particularly expressive. I had ordered my formal gown back when Covid was still a twinkle in a bat’s eye, but I left it in the closet for whenever we can have the big party. Instead, my sartorial silver lining in a year of sweatpants was a short white tuxedo jacket dress and a Jackie Kennedy-style white pillbox hat I never would have indulged myself with otherwise. My maid of honor couldn’t be there, but she sent along her late mother’s bracelet as my “something borrowed.” And the “something blue” was a special pandemic memento to show the grandkids someday: his-and-hers silk face masks.
Shortly before showtime, a red pickup truck arrived in the driveway, a scraggly older man with a camo gaiter behind the wheel.
“That’s…not the judge,” my husband said.
The man rolled down his window and announced, “I’m the judge.”
He was perfect. The ceremony was brief but sweet. The toasts were moving, as were the texts from friends and loved ones around the world, all going through their own quarantine experiences, all thinking of us.
I recognize the outrageous good fortune we have had, to be able to celebrate a landmark with our family this year when so many have not had the option. As horrendous as 2020 has been, I can never entirely hate this year, because it’s the year I got married.
And it’s more than that. I don’t believe marriage needs to be a part of life for everyone, but for those of us who do choose marriage, or any other ceremonial commitment, it’s a poignant step on the bridge connecting the generations. The marriage industrial complex encourages a lot of selfishness, but this year, in our low-budget, simplified ceremony, we could pare away the excess and bring it back to basics.
With only our immediate family — family we were so thankful to have alive and healthy — we could recognize that we were only the latest in each of our lines to take part in some form of this coupling tradition, lines that stretch back beyond our imagination. We were also just one couple of so many in the world making commitments to each other in a moment of turbulence. In a year when survival itself felt at stake in so many ways, a greater sense of connection through time and space was what sustained me.