Let's try this again...

The date was June 22, 2007 and it was freshman orientation at Penn State. Ryan and his mom, Helen, were exiting the information building, talking about all of the new opportunities that college allowed. At the same time, Kristen was walking through campus, imagining all the adventures she would have over the next four years. She strode under trees, light breaking through the leaves to shine on her face. Helen stopped in the middle of her conversation with Ryan, and looked across campus. “Wow,” she said, and pointed to a young woman meandering down the sidewalk , “she’s just your type” To which Ryan replied, “eh, she’s kind of skinny.” Little did he know, Ryan had just laid eyes on his future wife for the first time. Throughout college Kristen and Ryan became close friends. Later, they both moved to Washington DC; Kristen for work, Ryan for grad school. And one snowy night in December of 2015, after a dinner that included a healthy amount of wine, they both agreed that there was no good reason why their friend dates shouldn’t become real dates. And so began something that had not quite begun and would not soon end.

When we initially decided to postpone our wedding, we were bummed of course! It felt like over a year of planning was going down the drain.  In the weeks after we pushed the date, we continued to receive RSVP's back in the mail - just a constant reminder that we'd now have to wait a whole other year to celebrate with the people we love. We actually had no intention of getting married early - we planned to stay engaged. But then Kristen lost her job in early May and all of a sudden, the reality of needing healthcare was setting in. Romantic, right? So we decided to get married at 8:00pm on May 8th, the same date we had already locked in for our 2021 wedding. We had 3 days to plan. Turns out, if you tell the court you're getting married due to a healthcare emergency, things move pretty damn quickly. That same day the DC Court Clerk (our witness) emailed us a marriage license application. We printed it, filled it out, and emailed it back. Within the hour, we were on the phone with her verifying our information, and then she emailed 2 copies of our marriage license! One was for us to keep, and one was to be mailed back with a check for $40.  So at 5:00pm on May 8th, hand in hand just 3 hours before our Zoom ceremony, we walked down to our building's lobby, kissed, and slipped the envelop in the mailbox. Voila! We were married! Aside from some minor technical difficulties, we couldn't have asked for a better ceremony. It was just the two of us right in our living room, with immediate family and a few close friends watching. We said our vows, exchanged our rings, and were pronounced married by someone who wasn't even our officiant! It was perfect. And partially recorded! You can watch Kristen's attempt to cobble together a wedding video here: https://youtu.be/1qgwQLc8hoY