A wedding the pandemic couldn’t stop

Even without the day they had planned, this couple found a way to feel their loved ones' presence at their wedding.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed us. Many of us are still in quarantine, and it’s hard to live a normal life. In recent months, many brides and grooms who planned to get married in the spring opted to postpone their wedding, hoping to reunite with family and friends later to celebrate their walk down the aisle together. At the moment, it’s impossible for friends and family to travel or to hold a wedding reception with more than a handful of guests.

One couple, Emily and Parris, decided to work around the obstacles and get married in spite of everything, in the middle of the quarantine. They’re already applying, from the first second of their marriage, the promise to love each other “for better, for worse … in sickness and in health.”

On April 25, they went to a beautiful church in San Francisco, California, for a tiny ceremony. A well-known photographer in California, Vicens Forns, accompanied them to take their wedding photos. Forns is known for producing dream wedding albums. You only have to look at his website to enjoy visions of French gardens, Italian plazas, vineyards, pagodas, lagoons, forests, mansions … Luxury, family, and beauty fill every event.

This time, there was no lack of beauty, but otherwise it was very different from other weddings on Forns’ site.

Accompanied in spirit

Forns attended the wedding and was moved by the unusual ceremony: A bride and groom who were marrying without guests. To remind them that they were being accompanied in spirit by those who should have been sitting in the pews that day, they placed photographs of each of their previously invited guests on the seats.

Forns posted a single image on his Facebook page and soon the image went viral. As of this writing, it has received over 6,000 comments and has been shared over 39,000 times.

A radiant bride

In the photograph you can see Emily looking radiant, dressed in white. She’s entering the central aisle of a church that has the dimensions and the splendor of a basilica, but is almost completely empty.

Her father leads her to the altar, but no more than eight people appear in any of the photos. Emily looks resplendent.

Forns wrote a brief caption, saying, “Yesterday I was very lucky to be the photographer of this wedding in San Francisco, a different but especially emotional wedding.”

Love is more powerful than the coronavirus. The photographer continued: “Let’s not forget that life goes on.”

It is likely that this image will be one of the snapshots that will remind future generations of the year we endured the coronavirus. It will also show that when two people love each other, no obstacle can stop them.

Vicens Forns concluded his brief note: “Congratulations Emily & Parris!!!”