Love in the time of Covid-19

As the saying goes, I met somebody, last September. We hit it off, in a big way. Eventually, we decided that we were serious enough about each other to get married. So, I sold my house in Cheyenne, he left his in Boulder, and we settled in lovely Niwot.

Our plan was to get married at his college reunion in Vermont on June 7, then travel to see one of my dearest friends, and perhaps visit his daughter and her family in Maine.

And then Covid-19 hit without mercy. We began to wonder about flying. Then we began to wonder about his reunion. The organizers held off as long as they could, but finally it was cancelled. So there went the chapel and the visit to my friend and to his daughter.

We decided to just go ahead and get married.

And so the Covid-19 obstacle race began. First, I had to find out how to get a marriage license. So I looked online for Boulder County marriage licenses, and was directed to the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder’s office. But that office was closed because of Covid-19. Well, we could apply online. The only catch was that we would have to have a virtual Zoom-type meeting to answer some questions and present our driver’s licenses.

At the time I was totally ignorant of any of the details which need to be attended to in order to have a virtual meeting. One of the men I had been talking with via email called to explain what was needed for the meeting. Unfortunately, I was not wearing my hearing aids, I had a very hard time learning via my ears because I use my eyes to learn, and he was talking very fast. I got frustrated and just told him okay, okay, hoping he would stop.

The time for the video meeting came and there was no one there, nor anything to click on to open the meeting. I emailed the courthouse again and was told there was a link in my email, though there was not. After numerous tries, I found the link somewhere other than in my email and clicked on it, and there was the person from the courthouse. But he could neither see me nor hear me since my computer was without a camera or microphone.

Next we decided to use my husband’s computer, which is set up for Zoom meetings, but we didn’t have the connection. So we just gave up.

Finally, we decided we’d go to Loveland to get married, since Larimer County

offices were open. I wore the dress I had been wearing the first time we met, and Terry wore nice chinos and a tie. We had to make an appointment, and we were almost late, which we had been warned against.

At last we arrived at the Department of Motor Vehicles building in Loveland. That’s right, folks, we got married at the DMV.

We were masked of course, as was everyone we dealt with. Someone was waiting outside for us, and we had our temperatures taken and we sanitized our hands. Then we went into the clerk and recorder’s office, which is housed within the DMV building.

The whole “ceremony” took about 20 minutes and cost $30. Since it is legal to get married in Colorado without a minister or a judge, we just filled out the paperwork, and it was a done deal. But we couldn’t kiss until we got outside of the building and could take our masks off.

My grown son thinks the whole thing is hilarious, but who says romance is dead?