In January a local music tradition has been happening in Raleigh for as long as I can remember. It’s called “The Great Cover Up.” Each year members of local bands transform themselves into famous bands for one brief set. The bands taking the stage any particular night are never revealed to the general public until the curtain goes up. The event used to span one weekend and was so popular that the crowd lined up around the block hours beforehand to gain entry. My friends Jason & Dwayne, who are also in the band “1999 Problems” with me performed this particular night. My friends and I came out to support them. Ronnie had the same idea. Soon after I walked in and greeted my bandmates, Dwayne made the introduction that we’ll be repeating for a lifetime. “This is my friend Ronnie. He works out all the time.” I think we both gave Dwayne the same look as he walked away. Ronnie was a good sport. He hung out with my friends most of the night. At some point he managed to snag my SnapChat code for future reference. We went our separate ways with hardly a goodbye. I wasn’t aware that he lived 3 hours away and he wasn’t aware that I was interested. In the months that followed, we exchanged sporadic SnapChat messages, which evolved into texts. Soon we’d made plans for him to come back to Raleigh and spend some time getting to know each other. After that, we became inseparable.

It's been almost a year since our small pandemic wedding and we've decided to cancel the larger event. It's already been such a strain to schedule, reschedule, send out announcements, more announcements, emails. We appreciate all of you who have reached out during the past year and we know that all of us are looking forward to a time when we will be able to hug and see each other again. Thank you all for being so patient with us. Ann & Ronnie