Our University Canceled Graduation Day—So We Held Our Own on Zoom

Dani Olean

May 14, 2020In Uncategorized

You couldn’t have asked for better weather for a graduation weekend.

The sun had already lit up my room by the time I woke up on Saturday morning, and I could tell it was going to be a bright, warm day—a rarity for early May in Michigan.

There wouldn’t be a formal commencement this year, of course; how could you gather the thousands of new University of Michigan graduates and all their family and friends during a global pandemic?

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A Groom, by Proxy, on Zoom

Dani Olean

May 14, 2020In Uncategorized

On Friday, April 17, Veronica Wickline, 26, a part-time Latin teacher and writer, stood at the altar at St. Peter, a Roman Catholic church in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Little Washington, Va. Dressed in her wedding dress, veil and pearl earrings, she was there to get married. But the man standing next to her was not her beloved groom. Rather, it was his high school best friend, who was serving as a proxy.

The groom, Taylor Johnston Barker, 26, is a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. He is currently stationed at 29 Palms, a base in southern San Bernardino County, California. Because of the pandemic, the base issued an order preventing service members from venturing more than 25 miles. Very few exceptions were made, and getting married wasn’t one of them.

Because Ms. Wickline was free to go to San Bernardino, the couple looked into getting married there. “It was important for us to get married within the Catholic Church, so I did a little priest shopping,” Mr. Barker said. They found out quickly that the local bishop had put a halt on all weddings for the foreseeable future, and no priest could break the rule.

Postponing the wedding was not a palatable option. “We had been dating for five years. We were ready,” Mr. Barker said. “We felt like amidst all the uncertainty it was the one thing we were most looking forward to.”

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