Covid milestones: Getting engaged and organising a wedding during a pandemic

Rebecca Fitzgerald and Feargal McGrath on their wedding day. Picture: David Keane.

When Rebecca Fitzgerald and Feargal McGrath decided in March to get married this year, they found that the pandemic slowed down the pace of preparations and they didn't sweat the small stuff. They also found that even complete strangers were so kind when they heard they were getting married.

Joyce Fegan talks to them and two more people who refused to put their lives on hold for Covid-19.

The newlyweds: Arranging a wedding in four months in a global pandemic

CHILDHOOD SWEETHEARTS Rebecca Fitzgerald and Feargal McGrath, while playing with their one-year-old daughter Norah at home on the floor during lockdown, decided to get married.

The country was totally shut down and they kept their engagement a secret for another five months.

“We were sitting on a rug in the sitting room playing with Norah. We were stuck at home in March and we were just talking about the year ahead and Covid and Feargal just said: ‘I want you to know that I want us to get married and I’ve been thinking about it a lot and it's been on my mind and I know it's important’,” says Rebecca.

“And then he said: ‘I want us to get engaged and get married this year’.

“I was like: ‘Oh my god, that's lovely, but you want us to get engaged and get married in this whole year? I better get planning,” she recalls.

To celebrate, the couple opened a bottle of Malbec and they didn't tell anyone until their dream venue was booked several months later.

“We told no one until we had the venue booked, I think that was August-September time,” says Rebecca.

With cases rising and no sign of a vaccine, the couple knew it was always going to be a small wedding with just their families, which is exactly the kind of affair they had always wanted.

“When we were offered Christmas by Ballyvolane House, we jumped at it. We knew this year was just as much of a risk as next summer. The only worry was restrictions with travel and if numbers had been reduced to six,” states Rebecca.

Rebecca Fitzgerald and Feargal McGrath on their wedding day. Picture: David Keane.

With most couples taking a year or more to organise a wedding in normal times, what was it like to arrange a wedding in four months in a global pandemic?

“Because of Covid, there was a lot of online shopping and ordering, and I didn't have to run around the city, so it slowed the pace down.

“I was stopped by the guards both getting the wedding bands and my wedding dress, but anyone I told during Covid — even the Christmas tree guys, when I asked for wood, and you’d say: ‘It's a wedding’ — were just so kind. People were more invested in you because it was a tough time,” she says.

Working on the frontline in the medical profession, Rebecca was keenly aware that there were and are many people suffering greatly because of the pandemic.

“I'm more grateful and more aware that we are having a really lovely year when it's a really bad year for other people. 

I’m aware of being grateful and not sweating the small stuff. 

"When people are losing jobs and loved ones, you’re not worrying about favours,” she says.

Despite getting engaged and married in a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, Rebecca is full of optimism for the years ahead.

“I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to have met Feargal and to have grown up together and we have the most beautiful daughter. Nothing makes me happier than us being a family and for everything that's to come — more babies and a lifetime together.”

The author: Debut novelist’s publicity trail ground to a halt

This year saw the publication of Naoise Dolan’s highly anticipated debut novel

Exciting Times

— the focus of a seven-way auction in 2019. 

Naoise was to take her place among the long list of acclaimed and best-selling Irish writers in April — at the height of lockdown — having started work on her novel three years previously. The months were to be filled with publicity and travel, readings, signings and meeting readers.

Naoise Dolan

Instead, Naoise found herself doing an Instagram Live event on the night of her launch, having thousands of pages couriered to her house to be signed and taking part in virtual book festivals.

But for her, everything about publishing was new, so this was no different.

“On the day of the launch I had a virtual interview with a Refinery29 journalist, hosted by the UK clothing brand Rixo, and that went on Instagram Live.

“My publisher sent me thousands of tip-in pages to sign and then a courier came to collect them and, at the warehouse, they inserted them back into the rest of the pages before binding the books, when under normal circumstances I would have gone to the warehouse to sign the finished copies directly.

“Since then I've been doing remote things all year — interviews, festivals, panels and the like,” says Naoise.

From the New York Times to the Guardian, her novel went on to be widely acclaimed, exactly as anticipated, despite normal publicity and publication patterns being non-existent.

But acclaim and publicity were never high on the writer’s priority list.

“The part I see as my job is getting the words right and the rest of it is outside my control. After I’ve finalised edits on something, I see it as other people’s business how they respond to the work, although of course I’m grateful when reactions are kind.

Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan.

“I never want to become dependent on external validation because I want to always be able to write, even if no-one else reads it or likes it. As well, I want my motive to always be to write something I think is good and I don’t want to cloud my judgement by thinking too much about how it might be received,” explains Naoise.

The writer had worried about the virus long before it came to Ireland as she has friends in Hong Kong who were living through its first iteration. And while she was anxious when cases were confirmed in Ireland for the first time, she was not thinking specifically about her novel’s publication.

“I was anxious when it came to Ireland, but I’d had a bit of time to prepare psychologically. I wasn’t really thinking specifically about the book’s publication. 

"I think that’s because I didn’t know very much about publishing in general, so it wouldn’t have been helpful to speculate about how things might change when I had no idea what a normal publication would look like,” she says.

At the close of 2020 and at the start of 2021, the novelist is not really sure how to feel, other than looking forward to some rest.

“I definitely couldn’t have expected any of it, which I guess is why I don’t really know how I feel. It seems too early to say how the world might change in the next few years or, certainly, it’s too early for me to do so.

“It’s been a hard year, but it has for everyone and I’m thinking mostly of people who won’t be able to rest over the next couple of weeks. I’m exhausted and if I can get a bit of shut-eye I’ll be a happy woman,” says Naoise.

Exciting Times is available in all good bookshops now.

The academic: Julie delighted to make career change aged 29

If any student deserved a cap and gown graduation complete with scroll and a resounding round of applause it was Dr Julie Honan.

Having left a safe pensionable job in the bank at 29 to study medicine, as inspired by the death of her beloved father Barry, years of work, risk and sacrifice paved the way to her to graduation.

However, like everything else in 2020, her graduation didn’t go to plan, and she ended up being announced as a doctor, while sitting in her mother’s back garden, while staring at a laptop screen.

“I went back to study medicine as a mature student at the ripe old age of 29, having left a job in the banking world. I really wanted a change in my life and after the death of my father I realised it was now or never. This sad life event really did encourage me to go for it. I took the plunge and decided a career in medicine was for me.

“As I graduated from medical school in 2020, my graduation was just like almost everything else this year -virtual,” says Dr Honan.

Julie Honan: "I went back to study medicine as a mature student at the ripe old age of 29"

Then because of the pandemic the State needed final year medicine students to start work earlier than expected so their graduations were pushed forward, and took place at the height of lockdown in May.

“Covid called for the early start of intern doctors this year and therefore it was decided our graduation was put forward.

“I had imagined the day I graduated many times during the gruelling, but enjoyable six years studying. I imagined standing outside O’Reilly hall in Belfield in my cap and gown mid summer sunshine with my mother and partner proud as punch.

“Instead I was sitting outside in my back garden in early May with a small laptop and a handful of family members carefully sitting apart from each other struggling to watch the screen awaiting my name to appear on the screen with a few scattered rain showers.

“Then a big cheer from everyone when my name was called out rang out around Greystones, which of course was miles away from what I imagined would have been happening at the ceremony in UCD.

“Initially I thought I would be disappointed not to have the big day out, however the day was a fun afternoon spent with people I care a lot about. Everyone was still proud regardless,” she adds.

One garden graduation later, Dr Honan and her peers went straight to work in the frontline in a global pandemic.

And what was that like?

“We started working in May as interns. It has been such a steep learning curve. Especially to be working through a pandemic. But getting to go to work each day and learn for me has been such an amazing experience.

“No two days are the same. I’ve met such incredible colleagues along the way and getting to share and learn from each and every patient is such a privilege,” says the doctor.

After six years of study and lots of hard work, there is no disappointment, just excitement at the prospect of a long and successful career caring for others.

“All in all I’m not disappointed I didn’t get the graduation I had originally wanted. I am just glad I am enjoying the job I worked towards for many years,” says Dr Honan.