Hello, are you there?

My second wedding was an ever evolving affair. I'd only been semi-conscious for the first one (long story, maybe I'll tell you someday) so both I and my partner wanted to make this one more ours and less something my parents had tried to drain from my over-drugged brain while I wrestled with my sexuality (my poor first husband didn't last long).

I was sure this time. Never was I letting Daryl, who I just affectionately called "Chibi," get away from me. The issues were more in the logistics. I insisted in getting married in 2020. Any further and I would lose my mind, though there was no real reason why. We already lived together, spent every moment together, there was no discernible difference between pre married life and after married life other than we could file taxes together and it was slightly easier to convince doctors and insurance people to talk to me.

Originally we had planned for 9-9-20, to help me remember the date, but my mother begged us to move it to 8-28-20, to increase the likelihood of one of my brothers traveling to see us.

"The ninth is in the middle of the week and the kids might have school," she said.

"I know, I was trying to give them a longer time off," I admitted. Grumbling all the way, we changed the date, hoping it would help me remember Daryl's birthdate which I always changed from 28 to 29 for some reason. (I'm bad with numbers.)

It was around my birthday, January 25, that Covid-19 indicated that it was a thing. As we went further into the year I planned for our gift to those coming to be face masks. Even further, I pretty much canceled guests.

"Most of your family would be coming from the Navajo reservation and they're terrible right now, not that we're any better," I explained. "Texas isn't allowing travel and Matt has decided it's best to stay home." Honestly I was relieved. I'd love to see my brothers again, but not at the risk of them or their kids dying.

"So I'm just going to tell everyone I can to stay home and watch the stream." as soon as I'd realized what a problem the virus had become I'd looked into streaming the wedding. We never wanted anything big, originally we were going to be married in a medium park pavilion... until it was torn down for repairs and Covid made it so it wasn't rebuilt in time so we moved it to a much smaller pavilion that didn't allow for receptions.

Mystreamingwedding.com helped us send our wedding out to all of our friends and family at a time it was dangerous to have them close. I'm grateful that they were available. They were the most expensive part of my wedding, and I lied to my mom when she asked what the cost was (she was convinced I could stream myself since I had done some game streaming in the early days).

For those with my mom on not knowing what it takes to run a stream, especially for an outdoor event, it is worth hiring someone who can do it professionally, if only just to keep the stress off of you. Someone has to control the background noise, white balance, and recording. You can’t do that, since you’re in front of it!

I did make the few people who were there wear face masks, even though we were all outdoors. We put cupcakes in boxes and insisted that it be eaten at home.

But even though we were getting married in the middle of the first wave of a pandemic, while riots were happening, honestly scared to death because this was the final nail in the queer coffin for both of us, we loved it. We almost forgot to sign the marriage license.