Couple get married on the streets of New York amid coronavirus pandemic

The coronavirus pandemic has led some couples to wonder whether they should cancel their wedding, but two New York brides found a creative way to tie the knot.

Reilly Jennings, 28, and Amanda Wheeler, 38, were planning to get married in October, but with coronavirus wreaking havoc in New York, that seemed unlikely. 

New York City confirmed more than 16,000 cases of the virus, about 5% of the worldwide total Monday, and Mayor Bill de Blasio called it the "epicenter" of the crisis. The city is now in virtual lockdown, although grocery stores, pharmacies, bodegas, liquor stores, laundromats, parks, and car and bike repair shops remain open, the mayor said on social media.

The gym Wheeler works at has closed and laid off the entire staff except for her, so the couple decided to get married to ensure she would have insurance, Jennings said.

"We were really not sure what was going to happen come the fall, and we didn’t want to wait," Jennings said. "We just wanted to get married."

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Marriage license in hand, they were planning to get married at the courthouse after taking a few work calls at home. They were walking out the door when Jennings saw that de Blasio announced the marriage bureau would also be closed.

"I freaked out, cried a lot, had some wine pretty early in the day and then sort of just tried to think of what are we going to do?" Jennings said. "Amanda was very calm; I was not calm."

Jennings, who works in marketing at WeWork, said the pair frantically messaged their friends looking for someone who could perform the ceremony. Their friend, Matt Wilson, said he was ordained by the city clerk and could marry them. Jennings asked whether he was available in the next 90 minutes.

A friend loaned her a white jumpsuit and the couple walked 10 blocks to Wilson's apartment where he was self-isolating with his wife. Music blasted and bubbles spilled out from the fourth-story window as Wilson read a passage from "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez while they stood beneath his apartment.

The couple then exchanged "I do's" in a ceremony that Jennings said took about three minutes as neighbors and friends cheered from a safe distance away. They took some photos, and on the way home, they picked up a pizza and opened a bottle of champagne.

After the wedding, Jennings said they were both excited and happy, but experiencing "an array of conflicting emotions."

"I think it feels challenging right now to sort of celebrate anything because there are people who are out of work, people who are sick," Jennings said. "We’re trying to embrace as much love and sense of community as we can during this really wild time."

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Contributing: Jorge Ortiz, USA TODAY

Follow N'dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg