The day before Conie and Larry's March 14th, 2020 wedding, they heard that they couldn't get married.
Because of the COVID-19 virus, that meant two years of wedding planning had to go down the drain.
Larry had traveled from Minnesota to Conie's home in the Philippines. Now the couple had to make a split-decision whether to stay or fly to the United States. They didn't want to be in lockdown for an undetermined time, so on March 15—not knowing that the U.S. would also soon be quarantining—they flew to Minnesota.
"We left most everything behind, including my wedding dress!" says Conie, 55.
Conie was very bold!
Both Conie and Larry had never been married. They had been CatholicMatch members a couple of months when Conie messaged Larry. She liked his profile because it made her laugh. Larry had mentioned something about remodeling his home and needing a life-long helper, which caught her eye.
"He said, 'If someone hits the nail on the head most of the time, or is willing to try, [it] is a plus,'" she shares. "He seemed like a jolly, old, fat man, and I liked that character."
When Conie messaged Larry, she didn't hear back from him because her message ended up in his junk mail folder. On July 29, 2017, Conie sent a second message asking why Larry did not respond to her. Luckily, this time he noticed her message.
"Seeing Conie's persistence made me eager to respond," Larry, 55, recalls.
Date in Roma!
After seven months of talking, Conie and Larry were on their way to meet for their first date in Rome, Italy. On February 10, 2018, Conie arrived in Rome, but Larry didn't seem to be there. He said he'd arrive at 10:00 AM, but by noon she still had not heard from him. Conie began to worry, and all kinds of thoughts raced through her mind. Her anxiety was fueled by family members who had planted seeds of doubt in her mind, suggesting that Larry might not show.
"I didn't receive any call or text, and I thought that he wasn't coming," she shares.
A wave of relief washed over Conie when she received a text asking her, "Where are you?" Larry told Conie that he was waiting near customs. As she neared customs, Conie saw him sitting on a bench—recognizing him from his pictures on CatholicMatch. Feeling jittery, she walked up to him and said, "Larry?"
He replied, "Conie?" Then, they hugged each other.
"The first thing that came into my mind was he was here to meet me even though it was a long trip," she recalls.
Larry adds, "We had been corresponding for some time before initially meeting face-to-face, so we were well acquainted, and I was not at all disappointed."
She needed a sign...
Conie and Larry spent the next two days touring Rome. Larry thought that the trip was going even better than expected. He didn't know that Conie felt worried about whether he liked her. So after they parted to go back to their countries, Conie decided to wait to message him.
"I wanted for him to text me first to see if he liked me or not," she reveals.
Larry came through, sending her a text as soon as he arrived home. Conie took it as the sign that she needed to continue with the relationship.
Would Minnesota weather break her?
In February 2019, Larry made his first trip to see Conie, and the next month she traveled to see him in Minnesota. It had snowed a lot, so Larry felt concerned that the frigid weather would scare her away, especially considering that the weather is much warmer in the Philippines.
"We had 40-plus inches of snow on the ground," he recalls.
To make matters worse, Minnesota had a huge snowstorm during Conie's visit.
Conie took the different climate in stride and found a new hobby. "She took to driving a snowmobile like a natural Eskimo—having never even driven a car before."
She knew she had real a gem
Conie felt lucky to have Larry. He always consulted her in matters before deciding what to do. She could see that he wanted to please her. She liked Larry's good-heartedness and that he was a man of action. On one of his visits, he put solar cells on Conie's roof to help offset the electrical consumption.
Larry again proved the depth he would go for Conie when something terrible happened in her family.
During one of his many visits to Manila, Conie's eldest sister died unexpectedly. The family had no money for funeral expenses. Larry agreed with Conie that they should take a substantial portion of their wedding money—that had been saving up for the last couple of years—and use it to pay for the funeral.
Two years of planning down the drain
Just a day away, Conie and Larry's big wedding in Pasig, Philippines, couldn't take place because of the COVID lockdown. The couple had planned for a 200-guest wedding. To add insult to injury, some of their wedding suppliers took advantage of lockdown by not delivering anything and refusing a refund.
"The hardest part was the churned up stomach feeling of having lost all the resources and planning that we had all paid for," says the couple.
To avoid spending an unknown time in lockdown, they decided—before the airport closed—to hop a plane to the USA, leaving most everything behind, including the wedding dress.
"We were only allowed to carry 22 kilos of luggage. The dress and many other things had to stay behind," she sighs.
After arrival in the USA and completing quarantine, they rescheduled their wedding in Minnesota for March 28, 2020. On March 27—for the second time—they heard that their wedding might not happen because of a shelter in place order. Even though all church services had been canceled, Larry's priest married them on March 28. Six guests attended their wedding.
In a borrowed wedding dress, Conie walked down the aisle, at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, in Rush City, MN, to finally marry the man she loved.
The couple is living in Minnesota in Larry's in-process renovation. Larry hasn't been making Conie hammer nails, but he's put her in charge of choosing the color palette for their home.
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