Hello, dear readers! It’s been another week, and what a week it’s been. On Saturday, approximately two months after deciding that this was the best course forward for us, my partner and I got married in a lovely ceremony held over Zoom. We met online almost ten years ago, so it felt sort of fitting that we got married online, too. I will warn you right now that this post will be both sappy and photo-heavy, but hey, I got married, what did you expect?

We bought a whole bunch of silk flowers and arranged them on our bookshelves, which we used as our backdrop for the wedding.

On top of the bookshelves were each of our most beloved childhood toys, Blankie (mine) and Piggy (my partner’s), which happen to be from the same toy line – this is easily one of the most barf-worthy things about us.

But let’s back up. We started off our morning with an extra-special breakfast delivery from our faves at Smack Dab, which was absolutely delightful – so delightful, in fact, that we forgot to take pictures of it. I did grab a picture of the bag, though:

Then we rushed around and finished cleaning the apartment before putting on our dress shirts and finally launching the Zoom call.

I’m not going to share pictures of everyone on the Zoom call because I didn’t ask for permissions to do that, but this is what we looked like to our guests (thanks for sending this shot, N!):

The ceremony itself was beautiful – the friend who officiated wrote the perfect blessing and vows for us, our friends Eli and Heather performed beautiful songs (that they’d each written for their spouses), the rings fit and we didn’t hurt each other putting them on, and we got to see so many of our loved ones smiling and cheering us on as we took this step (in addition to some delightful bonus appearances by pets). (It was also under 15 minutes long, which is my favorite kind of wedding.) There were toasts (one of which included actual toast), and then we split all the guests up into “breakout rooms” so that we could visit with folks more easily while we ate dessert.

We had cheesecake and coffee! The cheesecake was made by nuns at a monastery in New York – turns out finding gluten free cheesecake with a crust is a bit of a challenge – and it was delicious.

It was so good to be able to hop around and see friends and family, many of whom we hadn’t seen in years. Had we gotten married under different circumstances, it probably would have been a much smaller crowd, but thanks to the internet, we had people there from all over the country (and overseas) able to join us. There were cats, dogs, and two- and three-week old babies included, too. It was just lovely.

After we signed off, we realized we should probably snap some photos of ourselves while the light (which we don’t get a ton of in our living room) was still good. Here’s a sampling of some of our favorites:

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The rest of the weekend was lovely, too – we ordered Indian food, and really just relaxed in our newly-clean apartment.

There have been some complicated feelings, too – grief around those who couldn’t (or chose not to) be there with us, mostly. But overall we have just been overwhelmed with gratitude for the amazing communities and love we’ve found ourselves surrounded by. We are truly extraordinarily lucky to have each other and to be so supported by so many of the people in our lives.

So here’s to getting through it all together – for love (and health insurance)!