We Got Married Over the Internet

A Love That Not Even the Pandemic Could Stop

If you’re new to Raising Myles, Welcome!

I write letters to my newborn son, Myles, sharing my journey as a first-time dad and spreading the love I didn't experience myself. If you’ve been here before — thank you for coming back. If you’re new here, here are some good places to start.

• How I Met Your Mother

• My Wife’s Love Affair - It’s exactly what you don’t think

• Three Months after I Met Your Mother

• How I Proposed to Your Mother

Dear Myles,

Five years ago, I proposed to your mother on Valentine’s Day. Before the ring I gave her could even settle on her finger, the world shut down because of a pandemic. We thought it would be nothing to worry about, just an overreaction. But soon, people started stripping the shelves of toilet paper, and people we knew began to get sick. Initially, we chose a date in November of the following year. Surely the pandemic would be over by then, we thought. But no—more stories of people getting sick, and everything from classes, birthday parties, and baby showers started to show up on little screens on the computer. How do you plan for tomorrow when today is not promised? We decided love could not wait. If the pandemic would try to consume us too, at least we would have loved abundantly and not in fear. So we decided to marry, three months later, over Zoom.

I want to tell you how hard it is to convince a Haitian family and a Southern family—who have never met—that you are going to be married over a computer. My mother, who still struggles to hold a phone at arm's length during a video call so you can only see the top of her forehead, questioned our decision as if to question our sanity. Others, too, asked about logistics and possibility. Even I, at times, wondered what we were doing. But when I think about love—especially the love between your mother and me—I am reminded that it becomes the essence of planning, of figuring things out, and of the manifestation of things to come.

So we reached out to the Airbnb owners—yes, the same place where I proposed to her—to see if they would be gracious enough to let us use the space again. With restrictions firmly in place, we decided that if everyone could not come, no one would come. It would be just us, my pastor, and two friends who would help us set up the tech.

As I write this, I am remembering now that this Zoom wedding was supposed to just be a mini celebration, not the real one. But five years later, we still have not had an official one—the one where your grandfather gets to walk her down the aisle, the one where your grandmother gets to see your mother in the dress she never got to wear, front and center. I’m wondering how your mother feels about this. SO much has changed between now and then. The pandemic, still here-ish, but a lot more people are gone, people that should have been here. In the time since then, we lost two grandparents: the one you never met, and the one who never got to walk your mother down the aisle. And in times like this, I am grateful that we did not wait. When tomorrow is not promised, love gets to be today.

So we went forward. Flowers from Trader Joe’s—I never knew what baby’s breath was until then. Some lights for decor, and your mother decorated the stairs that ended up being featured in The New York Times. A burgundy tailored suit from Macy’s, an old MacBook Air, some great friends who enrolled in the vision, and a faithful pastor who was willing to put his life on the line to see love get through.

Your mother and I—mostly your mother—spent the weeks before the wedding sending evites, creating run-throughs, and hosting a virtual parent meet and greet. And when the day came, even though the camera kept overheating, and even though it wasn’t what it was supposed to be, when your mother walked down those steps in that dress she was never supposed to even be in, I cried like I hadn’t just seen her right before we pressed play. Because whether it was at a large venue, in a small Airbnb, or just the five of us in person with myriad loved ones watching through tiny screens—and not the full village we had originally hoped for—this was the real thing: the day your mother and I said yes to us forever.

Cheers to year five. To celebrate, this past weekend we got dressed up, dropped you off at your cousin’s house, had our fill at this beautiful restaurant, took so many selfies, and then drove around the city in the rain listening to songs we used to play—the ones where we didn’t have to worry about you in the back, the ones where the dashboard became the stage and your mother and I traded lyrics like we were headlining a concert. We took the long way home, and drove like we had nowhere to go, hand in hand, and ended the night sharing our hopes for our marriage and our little family.

3 of 1000 selfies

I hope when you read these letters, you know without a doubt that I love you both, and there’s nothing anyone could do about it.

Love,

Daddy

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If you want to know more about the wedding here are some videos we made back then to help others who were considering the same.

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If you can’t commit to a monthly subscription, but still want to support Myles’ college plan, here is my Buy Me a Coffee page.

And if you are on Substack, please restack this letter and recommend it so I can share this love with the world.

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Let me know your thoughts:

1. What traditions did you have to adapt or let go of during the pandemic?

2. Have you ever had to let go of a dream wedding or milestone celebration? What did you do instead?

3. Have you ever tried to explain Zoom to a family member who just… doesn’t get it? How did it go?How do you celebrate love when life does not go as planned? pandemic like for you?

4. What is one hope you hold right now—for your family, for your future, or just for tomorrow?

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Want more of Myles’ Letters?

These are Subscriber’s favorites:

• They Say When Man Makes a Plan, God Laughs.

• Myles met his Grandfather in Brooklyn, NY

• Read about Our first Father’s Day.

• A video about beautiful backgrounds: Tell Them Where You're From.

• Read about My Wife’s Love Affair - It’s exactly what you don’t think

• Have you ever been Cooking in the Bathroom kind of tired?

• Check out Carrying the Gift, Holding the Love