Love in the time of COVID: City couples travel to Mid Hudson for marriage licenses – Times Herald
NEW WINDSOR – Laura-Elena Racines and Joseph Stehle knew each other when they were toddlers. When their paths crossed again a few years ago, each felt they’d found the person they wanted to be with for the rest of their lives.
Stehle had planned to host a church wedding in June and serve authentic Italian Mediterranean food. But then, plans were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As coronavirus cases continued to surge, the couple decided not to wait to marry.
On Tuesday they drove nearly 80 miles from their home in Queens to get a marriage license at the New Windsor Town Hall. Stehle said that in New York City the calendar was booked into 2021 due to a backlog because of closures as a result of COVID-19.
Making the best of strange times
“You can call it ‘love in the time of COVID,’ – I think Gabriel Marquez would approve,” Stehle said. “We’re going to make the best we can of the situation. Right now with all the bad news, a little bit positive will be good. We’ll have time with family and friends and get together for a happy occasion. It will be a therapy for us and everybody.”
Some towns in the Mid Hudson region have seen a surge of marriage licensing during the pandemic. New Windsor, for example, issued about 80 marriage licenses so far from March through August – double the number as in the same period of last year, according to Town Clerk Kelly Allegra. Many couples are from New York City.
“With everything going on around, they were so happy to be married and to be able to continue their plans. We’re so grateful to be a part of it,” Allegra said.
Cornwall has also seen an uptick in marriage licensing and an increase of requests from New York City area couples. While marriage licenses are under the exclusive jurisdiction of towns, many towns do not keep track of those who apply from out of the area so numbers weren’t readily available.
For many couples, putting off marriage is not an option they are willing to take. There are many reasons they come up to the Mid Hudson to get a license and proceed with their plans, such as for health insurance purposes or to provide emotional security.
New Windsor couple Walter and Kathleen Bloss, both in their 50s, decided to accelerate their plan to get married, after Kathleen Bloss recovered from COVID-19. Their original plan was to get married after their children’s weddings.
“It’s probably the scariest seven days in my life and definitely in her life too,” Walter Boss said, referring to Kathleen’s coronavirus illness. “At the end of that we said ‘this is kind of silly to continue waiting because we never know what could happen to one of us at any time.’”
“At that point, all the kids said just go get married,” Kathleen Bloss said, and both of them laughed.
They hosted a wedding in May with all their children and their significant others in their driveway after they received a marriage license at the Town Hall. They are looking forward to attending their son’s wedding next week, who also got his marriage license from New Windsor after he found he was not able to get one in time from Poughkeepsie.
“It’s definitely not what we had planned but it was beautiful and we’re glad we did it,” said Kathleen Bloss.
On Sept. 12, Racines and Stehle will celebrate the special moment in their backyard in Queens while family members and friends from all over the country will attend through Zoom. As they have to limit their honeymoon within the state due to travel restrictions, they are considering a honeymoon in the area.
hwang@th-record.com
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