Melissa + Santiago | Intimate Maryland Pandemic Wedding

An intimate wedding garnished with red and white roses and a romantic simplicity that highlighted the love between husband and wife.

Melissa and Santiago’s wedding was not the grand affair they had originally envisioned. A couple months before their nuptials, an unforeseen global pandemic, and the social restrictions that followed, forced them into a place of discernment and uncertainty.

In a tremendous act of trust, they placed their wedding into the hands of the Father, and in the end, Melissa says “we rejoiced in the simplicity of our small and intimate wedding day.”

From the Bride:

Growing up as a child of divorce, the vision I inherited of marriage was very different from that of the children I knew whose parents were married. I grew up in two separate households, seeing my dad on the weekends and having a full-time mom.

Throughout the years I faced various obstacles and challenges, but I’m thankful my mom was faithful to her Catholic roots and instilled many Catholic values into my upbringing. One thing was certain, if I ever entered the sacrament of marriage, I knew I didn’t want to put myself or my children through a divorce.

Related: Embracing Marriage as a Child of Divorce

I had long started my journey of healing past wounds when I met Santiago, and I actually thought I was doing pretty great. I realized, however, that God continually challenges us to grow and purify ourselves. A few months after our engagement, my mom encouraged me to attend a retreat for Adult Children of Divorce. The retreat was a huge blessing for Santiago and I. It was there, after more than a decade, that I was reunited with Fr. Dan Leary, a priest from my adolescent youth group. Fr. Dan quickly became an integral part of preparing Santiago and I for marriage.

At the beginning of quarantine, we were hopeful things would get better. As we got closer to the wedding date, we realized our plans would have to change. The more we were stripped of the worldly desires we envisioned for our wedding, the closer we were drawn to surrender and trust.

Those days were a purification process similar to the earlier stages of our marital preparation. Santiago and I grew even closer during this season as we discerned whether to postpone or keep our wedding date. I went through every stage of grief and was on a roller coaster of emotions, but these moments called me back to the sacrament of confession (thank God for drive-in confessions!) and to cling on to prayer.

As we grappled with the idea of having to postpone, God redirected our focus to the core of what brought us together in the first place: keeping God at the center of our lives. Despite the circumstances and tremendous change of plans, we rejoiced in the simplicity of our small and intimate wedding day.

In retrospect, attending that retreat was truly Divine Providence. The first time we asked Fr. Dan to officiate our wedding, he was already booked for May 16th. After the unexpected turn of events, we celebrated the sacrament of marriage at his parish with him as our officiant (he also photobombed our pre-wedding prayer picture).

As he said during our wedding homily, “It’s a perfect day to get married in the midst of a virus. Why? Because what overcomes the virus is love. What’s crippling so many people is fear. They’re afraid, but when you see love it reminds you that it is the only thing that lasts. God does not identify himself as fear. He identifies himself as Love, and the only emotion, the only virtue, the only reality that exists at the end of time, when you are before God, will be one thing: love. You’re injecting love into a culture that’s afraid. You’re injecting love into people that need to see it.”

We’re living in very heart-wrenching times. And yet God is present in our pain, in our sufferings, and in our brokenness. He calls us to seek and find him in these moments. He calls us to not lose faith and to trust in his plans, for they are far greater than ours.