NEW YORK, NY—King’s alum, Victoria Bevill, and senior, Jonathon Keeler, married amid the novel coronavirus pandemic just four weeks after a quarantine had been set in place in the state of New York.

The couple met during Keeler’s freshman year at King’s and started dating. On Nov. 26, 2019, Keeler proposed to Bevill during a walk along the Seine River in Paris. Bevill stated that while the general timing of the proposal was not a surprise, she was shocked to see that Keeler had the ring with him in France. Shortly after, a date for the wedding was set for April 26, 2020.

They planned on having an extravagant wedding at a venue in Dumbo. “It was going to be a 200 person wedding—really big, lots of family and tons of New York friends,” said Bevill.

On March 20, as the virus worsened and death rates grew, Governor Cuomo mandated that all non-essential businesses must close indefinitely and civilians must stay home under quarantine.

For Bevill and Keeler this meant changing their wedding plans.

“There were like a solid two weeks where we didn’t make a decision and we were just waiting to hear how bad this thing was going to get,” Keeler said. “The options were basically to postpone and have families there or get married now without them.”

Despite the obvious cons to both options, the overwhelming support from family is what ultimately led the couple to going through with the wedding.

Instead of holding their wedding on the original set date, they pushed it back ten days earlier to April 16, 2020. “The date we had set, for the few wedding guests that we had, worked for all of them so we just did it then,” Bevill said.

Changing the wedding date wasn’t the only alteration they had to make for their special day. The wedding took place on a rooftop in Brooklyn where only 13 people gathered. Amongst the 13 was the officiate, the witnesses, and the couple themselves.

“Really, that’s all you need for the wedding itself,” said Derek Devine, Lead pastor of Apostles Church Brooklyn.

Pastor Derek Devine | Photo Courtesy of the Keeler’s

Bevill and Keeler originally planned on Bevill’s father, who is a pastor, to officiate their wedding. Alongside him would have been the couple’s Brooklyn based pastor, Devine. However, because it would’ve been a danger for Bevill’s father to be part of the wedding, the couple asked Pastor Devine to take his place.

“I love both of them and take my role as their pastor and friend seriously,” Pastor Devine said, “I was honored to officiate their wedding but also saddened that her own dad wasn’t able to be there in person.”

Before accepting this bigger role, Pastor Devine spoke with the couple to make sure that having a wedding under these circumstances was something they were okay with doing.

“I wanted to get their takes on what they were looking for,” Pastor Devine said. “I just wanted to walk through whether or not they wanted to wait for an opportunity when their family and friends... could gather together for the wedding, or if they were just ready to start their life together now.”

When the couple affirmed that they still wanted to go through with the wedding, Devine ensured that the proper precautions took place.

“I wanted to be really upfront with the bride and groom in letting them know we’re in the midst of this [global pandemic] and so we just need to set expectations before you have your ceremony,” Devine said. “We wanted to keep the group to a small number, encourage those who attend to wear masks,...and keep good social distancing.”

Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Keeler | Photo Courtesy of the Keeler’s

After the wedding, Bevill and Keeler held a small celebratory gathering in their apartment with neighbors and others who have been around them during the quarantine. “No one came into the apartment unless they were already kind of in the social circle during quarantine; it was already really small so only like six people were there,” Keeler said.

For those who were unable to attend the wedding in person, a zoom call was put in place. The zoom call remained small and intimate with only 21 of Bevill and Keeler’s immediate family members joining the livestream.

All thing’s considered, this quarantine-style wedding went off without a hitch.

Four Quarantine Weeks and a Wedding