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Engaged and Married during Covid

How being cooped up was the best thing for our relationship

By Janice Williams Published 3 years ago 5 min read
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For the majority of people, 2020 was not their favorite year. I don't need to remind you of the isolation and fear that swept the world, but for my little world in Lubbock, Texas, the highs outweighed the lows.

As a single mom and personal trainer, dating was not on my radar. In fact, I was liking my routine and life and did not want any relationship altering my plans. To be honest with you, my track record with men was not too hot. The only thing hot was the tempers of my exes and their need for control and having other women in their life.

So I was on the Beyonce train and loved being a single woman.

And then, I met Larry. Larry was a gym rat. I mean, I spent hours at the gym because I worked out and trained clients but Larry should have been put on payroll. He loved lifting weights. And he was hard to miss at 6'7 and 280 pounds to be exact. And to hear him speak! Josh Turner, eat your heart out.

If you remember, I was NOT on the market, so when Larry came up to me to ask about personal training, it was a professional conversation and we exchanged information and I didn't think anything else about it.

After about a month of exchanging texts messages and finishing pre-scheduled trips, I scheduled him for his first week of training right after the New Year. I was looking forward to helping him with a new kind of workout on Monday, but on Sunday he stated he had gotten me a little gift based on one of our conversations. What woman doesn't like gifts?! So, of course I met him shortly after at the gym to pick up my goodies. To my surprise, a bag of wine and cheese.

Well I didn't want to drink alone and wanted to get some more information from him before we started, so I blindly invited him over to share with me. This was out of character for me, but I went with it. And hours of conversation and laughs later, we said goodnight and I closed the door behind him and said to myself, "I'm going to marry that man". And then gasped and said what did I just say?

I shook it off and thought to myself it must be the wine.

We started training and I had him changing up his routine and he gave a great effort. Day two was a day on his own to follow a workout, but when I saw him staring at a medicine ball, I thought, let me join in and make sure he keeps the intensity up. COVID hadn't reared it's ugly head at this point, so we were in your face sweating kind of working out. And that was the beginning of the change to all of my workouts. From that day on, we worked out every day together. He paid for three 30 minute sessions but got five one hour sessions a week and I didn't care one bit about not making that money. To be honest, I love my job and I wish I could train people for free but he and I were having fun and it was really nice to have a workout partner, which is out of character for me too.

My daughter was 8 years old and got to meet Big Larry at the gym and she instantly was crazy about him. This is when I knew something was up. I had never seen her interact with anyone like that before and I didn't know what to think. Larry would bring us lunch or snacks throughout the day, and when he asked me out for a date, the walls I had built with everyone else never had a chance to go up, and I said yes with an excitement I hadn't felt in a long time.

Our first official date was January 5, 2020 and we spent every day together since.

The gym shut down in May due to COVID and then we spent almost every hour together. We talked like I had never talked to another human being before. I knew this man more in 6 months than a man I was engaged to for 4 years and he knew me more than any other person has.

He asked me to marry him in March and planned to be wed on May 30th. Little did we know this Coronavirus that was on the news was going to take off into the world changing pandemic it became.

So, we planned a wedding in our friends beautiful backyard in Oklahoma. In case the gathering laws would keep changing, we could still have a small wedding in a backyard and wouldn't have to cancel a venue. It was quite a challenge determining who we could or couldn't invite, so we went with immediate family and close friends and kept the wedding party to 2 for him and 2 for me.

As the wedding day approached, the laws were ever changing and the virus was spreading like crazy. I had mine and my daughter's dress and he had the dress shirts and I kept telling myself, we can always just go to the courthouse. But then, goverment buildings were shutting down and it was hard to know if that would even be an option.

It took a lot of faith and patience and a positive attiude to know that no matter what happened, it was going to be okay. We couldn't committ to the wedding day until the week of the wedding and we decided we will show up and get food and hope that the at least the officiant shows up.

And show up he did! I'm so glad to say that the weather was beautiful, we had a small enough group that it didn't break any laws, and that it was the perfect day full of love, family and friends. The uncertainty of the year was a challenge but a challenge that was worth the fight and when I look back at 2020 and the chaos and division the world faced, LOVE conquered all in my little world.

We're always laughing

My sweet Sterling

Our Officiant Barry

ceremony and reception
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About the Creator

Janice Williams

Faith first, family and fitness! My passions come from those loves of my life. A devoted woman of God, wife to an amazingly gentle giant of a man, and a proud mommy of a smart, sassy and spirited daughter. God is good all of the time...

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