A wedding reimagined.

Dear friends and family,

You might have seen this coming, but...

We are cancelling our original June 27 wedding and instead hosting a virtual ceremony on Saturday, May 23 that we would love for you to attend from the comfort and safety of your homes. 

In early March, when Covid-19 was just starting to transition from a speculative threat to a real one, we felt grateful for our end-of-June date because — of course — the virus would subside by then. Several days before the shutdown — before we knew there would be a shutdown, before we understood that Brooklyn could turn off like a light switch — Elisa was scouring the neighborhood for hand sanitizer when a random thought popped into her brain. “I wonder if I should stop for a pie,” she wondered, “in case this is the last day to buy pie.” But in a neighborhood with a bakery every few blocks, of course it was impossible the world could cancel pie. 

Several things happened over the next few days: a family visit to New York City for wedding dress shopping was cancelled. The shops where Elisa had scheduled fittings left polite voicemails that they couldn’t process new orders. Sports ended. Tom Hanks caught Covid. Over the weeks that followed, it became obvious that inviting a slew of out-of-town friends and family to a large gathering in what had become a coronavirus hot spot was not gonna happen. Fuhgeddaboudit, as New Yorkers say. 

So now, our Plan B: On Saturday, May 23rd, we are tying the knot...on our roof. We have asked a friend to officiate the ceremony (from six feet away, of course) and hired a company to facilitate the Zoom live-stream. We would love to invite you all to tune in to share this special moment with us. The ceremony will be followed by a virtual reception.

This isn’t the wedding we planned — but it’s not a loss. The past two months have been a crash course in building a life together, like a time-lapse experiment in surviving the mundane. This is the most time we’ve spent together, and the quietest time, with no packed calendar of travels or dazzling New York City date nights. Even without the thrills of our old lives, without Peter’s job, without the perfect new dress, we love each other a lot, more than ever really, and we cannot wait to exchange vows together and cry together and drink champagne together. A wedding stripped down to its essential parts — words exchanged, promises made, shared hope for a future we now understand is impossible to predict — is not less of a wedding. We look forward to this new ceremony feeling like the luckiest couple in the world. We’ve never felt more grateful to have each other and for the good health of all the people we love most. 

In New York City, you can still order pie from any number of local delivery apps pretty much around the clock. We haven’t — we’re not pie people, really — but it’s true that some things can’t be cancelled. 

Please save our new date, May 23, sped up from our original June date for reasons both practical (health insurance) and romantic (really, we just can’t wait!). 

With love,

Elisa & Peter