I Choose to Have You Now: A Pandemic Wedding

Despite the pandemic, life and love still go on.

My nephew and godson, John, married his sweetheart, Clarissa on a Saturday in mid-April. When their "Save the Date" arrived some months ago, I had immediately searched for an $89 special that would fly me and my husband from the east coast to the west. Right.

What can I say? I believe in miracles.

Little did I know then that I'd "get to go" after all, and that our kids would too. The wedding was live-streamed. All I had to do was set up my laptop, round up the family and take a front row couch seat. Our married kids tuned in from their homes as well.

This virtual presence brought us "together" as we sent congratulations and prayers and heart emoticons through the comment boxes. Other than the fact that we were all talking in church, I thought—Wouldn't it be great to do this for all weddings in the future after quarantine lifts for the benefit of those who can't make it?

Still, it was bittersweet.

I couldn't help feeling bad for all those who should have been there and couldn't—especially my brother and his wife and all of my nephew's brothers and sisters. They were home watching too. Only the bride's parents were allowed to attend besides the priest and server and a couple of eager photographers. Seeing the rest of the church empty, remembering our own joy at family weddings, it just didn't seem right that the couple should be deprived of that.

The priest echoed these thoughts in his sermon. He talked of how Clarissa probably dreamed of her wedding her whole life, as most girls do. He talked of the very real loss to both bride and groom not to have their families and friends around them to support them on one of the biggest days of their lives. But then what he said surprised me.

"There was no disappointment," on their faces. What he was seeing instead "was one of the highest expressions of true love." What was most important to them was to be married. "If I can have you now or have you later with all these other things, I choose to have you now."

When Father said now, he meant it.

John and Clarissa were originally supposed to get married in May but when they realized that the wedding could not go as planned, they moved it—not to some date "in the indeterminate and uncertain future." They moved it closer.

This alone must be, Father noted, a cause of great joy for all of us who couldn't make it. And indeed it was. I thought of all the weddings I have been honored to attend and how the best ones were not the super expensive, impeccably planned, "perfect" ones, but the ones where I could see that here was a match made in heaven. Here I was seeing a love so generous it did not count the cost.

Marriage has sacrifices but these usually don't show themselves until after the wedding when the proverbial "honeymoon is over." This couple got to experience it on their wedding day and they embraced it. It became a spiritual gift to them and a joy. And from the looks of the photo they sent around—a hoot!

Someday, Father prayed, still others would share in that unique joy...that the bride and groom would sit down with their children and tell them, that's how much they loved each other.

Father reminded us that the most important guest was there.

At the Wedding Feast of Cana, "for the first time in the history of weddings, there was a noble guest who could not be surpassed. This is a privilege that every Catholic couple now has—to have the King of Kings present and in attendance at their wedding." Yes, I believe in miracles.

Marriage is a vocation, a means of sanctification.

"Christ loves nothing so much in this world as human souls." Father said. "That love was so great that it 'compelled' him to descend from heaven; it 'compelled' him to shed his blood on the cross. In marriage Christ says to each of the spouses, 'I died for this soul. I place it in your hands. Take care of it and bring it home to me.'"