Two grandparents, Alvin Lee, 90, and Dorothy Driskell, 85, had planned a big ceremony for their nuptials this spring, but when the coronavirus pandemic hit, the couple got creative and livestreamed their wedding over Zoom.
Lee’s wife, Rachel, passed away 11 years ago, and Driskell’s husband died two years ago, CBS News reported. But in 2019, Lee and Driskell met at a retreat center in New York and have found love ever since.
Even though they both met in New York, they are both from Ohio. Lee is from Germantown and Driskell is from Westerville, about two hours away, according to Lee’s granddaughter Jennifer Whitaker.
“They became fast friends and began driving back and forth between their cities to see each other,” Whitaker said.
Both quickly realized they had a lot in common; they both had lost spouses and were grandparents.
In January, Lee proposed to Driskell at the Cincinnati Symphony and had planned a big wedding, but the coronavirus pandemic had altered their plans.
Because social distancing and stay-at-home orders are keeping people in different households from seeing each other, Lee’s family got creative and threw him a surprise 90th birthday party using the video-conferencing app Zoom.
“It sparked their idea to then hold a Zoom wedding,” Whitaker said.
“The wedding took place at Alvin’s home on Friday. Twenty family members and friends joined the Zoom call,” Whitaker said, adding, “It was the pastor’s first Zoom wedding!”
Lee and Driskell were not the only couple to have a wedding that was “hip with the times.” One New York couple had a judge marry them over FaceTime from the comfort of their living room.
But other couples who had to cancel their dream weddings were not so lucky. One couple who had planned their wedding in Tokyo, Japan, for April had to completely reschedule their plans due to the coronavirus for the following year.
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