D-Day + 8: True Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Before the advent of coronavirus, 2020 was looking to be our summer of weddings.  Through the summer and fall of 2019, we were inundated with announcements by young family and friends of upcoming nuptials.  “We’re engaged!” and “She said yes!” were staples in our Facebook feeds.  By the fall, we were starting to anticipate plans for four separate weekend (or longer) trips to attend these weddings.

It’s an impressive lineup of locales and venues.  Our nephew’s wedding is scheduled for June in Louisville, KY.  Cool!  Neither of us has been to Louisville before, so absolutely, we’ll be there.  The “Day at the Races” at Churchill Downs on the day before the wedding is just the cherry on top of that sundae.  Then the Vermont wedding of our niece in August.  Suh-weet!  What a lovely time of year for a trip to New England, with the added possibility of making a longer vacation out of it.  Maritime provinces, anyone?  Then another niece getting married in Omaha in September:  not as exotic, but home grounds for this Iowa girl.  Finally, the young friend who wins the award for the most romantic proposal of the group.  He and his now bride-to-be had the hiking experience of a lifetime last summer in the French-Swiss-Italian Alps, and he managed to find a willing bystander to video his mountaintop bended-knee proposal, with a shimmering mountain lake in the background.  We were thrilled when he told us that we would be included in their wedding plans in Estes Park in September.

Except.

Except, who the hell knows what is going to be happening for travel in June?  That’s the biggest risk item.  But August and September:  I wouldn’t put big money on a bet that the coronavirus will be completely a thing of the past by then.

And so, what?  What of these young folks with thoughts of the big day that some – or all – have been dreaming of their entire lives?  The preparations, the wedding gowns and tuxes, bridesmaids’ dresses and flowers, photographers, caterers, musicians, fancy venues?  The specialness of the day wrapped up in sharing it with ones you love.  Plans for honeymoons in exotic places….like Italy, or Spain, or, well, anywhere in the world?  Will anyone be able to travel?  More immediately, will the invited guests be able to travel to the ceremonies?  Will the venues be enabled to again provide facilities for crowds that go well over current restrictions of 10 or 50 or 100?

We’ve been gathering “Save the Date” cards, and just a week ago received the first invitation, for the Kentucky wedding.  I wish I could tell you what will become of all these plans to solemnize true love.  But true love in the time of coronavirus is like nothing anyone has seen before, so.  Who the hell knows?

These thoughts are especially poignant since our wedding is still fresh in our minds.  Ed and I got married short of five years ago, in a ceremony much more humble than the ones we’ll attend – if we can attend them – this year.  We had a wedding celebration in the lush back yard of good friends, with a group of 80 or so friends and family in attendance.  Our “minister”, Galen, was ordained by the internet.  No attendants, no flower girls, no long walk down the aisle;  we were outside on a glorious sunny and warm September day.  Just vows that we wrote for each other.  No “love and obey”.  I don’t think we pledged to stay together through sickness and health, although I’d say that’s pretty much a given (Ed has, at least, lived up to his part of that bargain with all the care he gave me this past year during my knee replacement saga).  We did pledge to have fun, and to give each other space for our individual obsessions and idiosyncrasies.

I’m pretty sure we didn’t explicitly include, in those vows, to “do whatever it takes should a pandemic strike us”, and I know darn well that our vows didn’t include a stipulation that, should we not have access to salons and barbers, I would cut Ed’s hair for him.  But, well, you do what you have to do.  A day or two before the salons in Colorado were closed, Ed ordered a clipper set, and it arrived late last week.  This weekend, we brought a chair into the bathroom, and Ed became my first victim with the clippers.  For some this may be an ordinary thing:  I know that my stepdad buzzcut my brothers' hair when we were all young, but that memory didn’t make this experience any less weird.  And, strangely, intimate.  And, all in all, it didn’t turn out too badly.

This, I think, is truly true love in the time of coronavirus.