Dana + Joseph | Intimate Spring Florida Wedding
/A May wedding on a sunny Florida day, witnessed by an intimate gathering of guests. Hints of pastel blues accented the celebration, and eucalyptus leaves garnished the joyful reception.
Dana and Joseph navigated a long-distance relationship full of precious travel memories and, eventually, a marriage proposal. But they didn’t expect to plan their wedding during a pandemic—a crisis that changed many of their plans.
Through the powerful intercession of St. Joseph and trust in the Lord, they still celebrated “a wedding day more beautiful than [they] could ever imagine.”
From the Bride
Two years before I met Joseph, a dear friend of mine, and one of my bridesmaids, told me to pray for my future spouse. I began praying for him that same day, and it became a continual part of my prayer routine.
St. Anne is my confirmation saint and the patron saint of unmarried women, so I asked for her intercession often. I also prayed novenas asking St. Joseph to help me find a holy spouse like him—I had no idea my husband’s name would be Joseph!
Even though Joseph and I attended the same college, we didn’t meet until joining Catholic Match several years after graduation. We immediately connected over our faith, being self-proclaimed bibliophiles, similar travel interests, and shared values.
Joseph lived two hours away from me, and our first in-person date took place during a weekend in August of 2018. It included lunch, a visit to the local botanical gardens, and dinner. During dinner, I felt an immediate need to visit God in the adoration chapel at my church: Queen of Peace Catholic Church.
After our date ended, I went straight to the chapel. I felt God’s overwhelming love for me and a peace about proceeding with the relationship beginning to form between Joseph and me. Later, Joseph said he felt God answered his prayers with a rainbow on the drive home.
He’s told me it was “love at first sight” for him, but I just thought that happened in movies.
By September we were courting and visiting each other almost every weekend. We are grateful to our friends and family who let us stay with them and respected our desire not to stay overnight alone with each other until marriage.
In October, I traveled to Ireland with one of my future bridesmaids. Throughout the whole trip, I stopped by St. Joseph chapels in churches and prayed for our relationship. One of these churches housed relics of St. Valentine, so naturally I prayed there as well.
We even had the opportunity to visit the town of Knock, where a Marian apparition included St. Joseph!
In January, Joseph and I began praying a string of novenas to different saints we had a devotion to, alternating who would pick the next novena and saint. We continued this practice throughout our long-distance courtship and engagement.
Some of my favorite moments together with Joseph have been during our travels. He joined my family for our Thanksgiving and Christmas tradition of enjoying the Christmas lights at Callaway Gardens in Georgia.
A month before our engagement, we visited Savannah, Georgia for a long weekend trip enjoying history, nature, and food. We stayed in different hotel rooms during this trip, to maintain chastity. And after our engagement, we traveled to Arizona to visit some of Joseph’s family and the Grand Canyon.
Joseph proposed in the adoration chapel of my church, Queen of Peace. It was the same adoration chapel I visited after my first date with him, and it also became the church in which we were married.
During our engagement, we were told several times to expect something to go wrong. But we didn’t expect a pandemic.
Many of our plans had to be reimagined in a matter of weeks. We relied heavily on our friends, family, and church community to help us through the challenges of getting married during COVID-19. It was also a time to reflect more fully on what was most important: the marriage sacrament, not the perfect wedding.
In spite of this, I prayed to God for a wedding day more beautiful than I could ever imagine, and it was. When our wedding day arrived, everything fell into place.
Receiving the Eucharist was particularly emotional during our nuptial Mass, as that was our first time receiving communion since the start of the pandemic in March. Our priest, Fr. Mike Foley, blessed our rings and concelebrated our nuptial Mass with Fr. Al Esposito. Fr. Al was our main celebrant, pastor, and dear friend who prepared us for marriage.
On the day of our rehearsal, we coordinated with Fr. Al to have a holy hour of adoration beforehand. We had half an hour to ourselves before guests and family joined. This really helped to center us and chase any nerves away.
Joseph and I also received the sacrament of reconciliation. We highly recommend this to any Catholic couple before getting married!
We chose Mass readings that reflected what we wanted our marriage to emulate: we love because God first loved us. Our first reading was Tobit 8:4b-8. We selected Psalm 128 (“may the Lord bless us all the days of our lives”) for our psalm, Romans 8:31b-35, 37-39 for our second reading, and John 17:20-23 for the gospel.
Joseph and I also wrote our own petitions and prayed for those who could not be with us, including deceased grandparents, family members, and friends.
We spent a lot of time thinking about the songs for our wedding, said in the Mass of Saint Ann. And we selected some of our favorite hymns:
Prelude: Laudate Dominum by Mozart and Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring by Bach
Processional: Canon in D by Pachelbel
Presentation of Flowers to Mary: Ave Maria by Schubert
Offertory: The Summons by John L. Bell
Communion: How Beautiful by Twila Paris
Recessional: The Four Seasons: Spring by Vivaldi
We initially planned to have a string quartet and vocalist, but our church’s choir director sang and played piano beautifully instead.
The details of our wedding included many small touches of sentimentality. My “something blue” was a navy rosary from the Vatican when I studied abroad. “Something borrowed” was my mother’s pearl bracelet, and my “something old” was a bow from my grandmother’s wedding dress that my mom sewed to my “something new” dress.
I had a difficult time finding a wedding dress that felt right, until I tried on “the one.” To my surprise, the style was called “Trinity.”
To light our unity candle, Joseph and I used our baptismal candles. And we incorporated the Croatian tradition of holding a crucifix during our wedding vows, to show that through Jesus we are united in marriage. We also presented white roses to Mary’s statue as our first act as husband and wife.
Prior to our wedding, Fr. Al encouraged us to select the variation of the nuptial blessing we preferred. While Joseph and I kneeled during this blessing, he invited our parents to lay their hands on us.
I designed programs that shared the details of our wedding Mass with accompanying explanations for any non-Catholic friends and family. It also included love-related quotes from our favorite saints.
While I wish our wedding could have been an opportunity to show the beauty of the Catholic Mass to all our guests in person, we were unable to have more than 25 attendees. So I pray the recording of our wedding Mass still shared the joy of our wedding day. And that our vocation of marriage will share the beauty of our faith in daily life.
My mom and I crafted the reception decorations. I hand-lettered signs and designed table cards that showed Joseph and me at different ages: First Communion, college, etc. We also included wedding photos of our parents and grandparents surrounding our engagement photo.
Joseph and I wanted our family and friends to have fun despite COVID-19. Our guests who were unable to attend the wedding joined us for the reception on Zoom, and they watched us dance and give toasts and speeches. We were so grateful to a local Catholic-owned restaurant who hosted our reception after we had to change our original plans.
Unfortunately, both our best man and maid of honor lived out of town and were unable to attend due to travel restrictions. So they recorded their speeches ahead of time, and we played them at the reception. Joseph and I still had our first dance, and my dad and I had our father-daughter dance.
We had so much fun and surprised everyone with spontaneous dancing throughout the night. For reception music, we put together a Spotify playlist of Big Band era songs with a few modern tunes. Fr. Al was our excellent—and hysterical—master of ceremonies.
At the end of the night, we had our send-off under glow sticks and bubbles. And despite the pandemic, our intimate wedding allowed us to spend more time with each other and our attendees while being fully present in our new marriage sacrament.
For me, getting married during COVID-19 was a spiritual journey. I’ve learned a lot throughout the wedding planning process; namely, to embrace flexibility, to be open to changes in expectations, to find gratitude in every situation, to focus on what’s most important, and to trust in God as well as our family and friends.
The biggest lesson has been a deeper understanding that we can’t control our lives as much as we think we can. And letting go of that control and handing it to the Lord brings freedom.
Photography: Jimmy Ho Photography | Nuptial Mass Location: Queen of Peace Catholic Church, Gainesville, Florida | Wedding Reception Venue: Napolatano’s Restaurant, Gainesville, Florida | Day-Of Coordination: Sandy DeTeresa, friend of the couple | Décor: made by the Bride and Mother of the Bride | Rings: The Gem Collection, Tallahassee, Florida; Manly Bands | Flowers: Publix | Cake: Publix | Wedding Program: Made by the bride and printed locally by Alta Systems, Inc. | Invitations: Shutterfly | Bride’s Dress and Veil: OML Bridal | Bridesmaids’ Attire: David’s Bridal | Groom’s and Groomsmens’ Attire: Men’s Wearhouse | Hair: Eden Michele Salon | Makeup: done by the Bride | Church Music: Gary Kneal, Music Director at Queen of Peace | Reception Music: Spotify playlist made by the Bride and Groom | Ice Cream (surprise from a bridesmaid!): Sweet Dreams Homemade Ice Cream of Gainesville