00:00It's not the kind of mood you want to celebrate with people, you know, everyone being scared.
00:04The wedding is a celebration of us, but it's also a celebration of all of our friends and family.
00:10Hi, I'm Malcolm.
00:12Hi, I'm Andrea.
00:13Because of coronavirus, we had to postpone our wedding and do it virtually instead.
00:17We met in Mexico City in 2015.
00:20I was working as a production coordinator in Mexico City,
00:23and Malcolm was a production manager for a company in Los Angeles.
00:27For a year, we didn't, we weren't dating, but we were talking a lot.
00:31And I was traveling a lot to Los Angeles for vacation with my family.
00:34So it was like a year of getting to know each other.
00:36I had the possibility to maybe work in LA, so I gave it a try.
00:41That was sort of the catalyst when she's like, I'm moving here.
00:44I was like, oh, this is serious.
00:45We thought Malcolm was cool, and then Andrea came along, and then we decided she was much better.
00:50They encouraged each other to really just like show up and be all the parts of their personalities.
00:56They compliment each other.
00:57Like she's the yin to his yang and vice versa.
01:00So they're a great, great couple together.
01:03They're fun.
01:04They're really fun.
01:05Fun food.
01:08We ended up getting engaged in June.
01:11We were trying to figure out how she could stay in the States because her student visa was expiring.
01:15I think the hardest thing in that time was that she was basically stuck in the States for a while
01:20in this limbo period.
01:22Months and months of her really upset and kind of, what am I going to do?
01:26How are we going to do this?
01:27Why aren't you helping me?
01:28And the whole time I was just kind of biting my lip.
01:30I'm just like, I'm already looking at rings.
01:32This is all figured out, but I don't want to ruin the surprise, so I can't say anything.
01:36Her older sister does a birthday party every year and rents a house in different parts of Mexico.
01:41And I had told her older sister because it was her birthday party and I didn't want to like steal
01:46her thunder.
01:47It was this beautiful house that overlooked the lake.
01:49Hands down, most beautiful setting for an engagement.
01:52Like it was like cheating.
01:53It's usually me, the one who's like, let's take a picture.
01:56And he's like, come, come, come.
01:57I'm like, why?
01:58Let's take a picture.
01:58And I was like, okay.
01:59Very nice for him to be so thoughtful and think about having my closest friends and family there.
02:04One of the parts of the process was talking to a lawyer and say, how do we switch from my
02:10status to a residence?
02:13And that was the first bummer because it was like, oh no, you can't get married in a year.
02:18You can't start planning a wedding.
02:19This was right kind of at the beginning of Trump's presidency as well.
02:22So we weren't really sure.
02:23A lot of things had changed and it was kind of uncertain to say, oh yeah, it'll take six months
02:28for the residence.
02:30Our only option that we both considered was to get married in the States, in Los Angeles, in a civil
02:37ceremony with the judge.
02:38And wait for the green card to arrive and then start planning our Mexico City wedding.
02:44This is August 17th of 2018.
02:48And by June of 2019, I get my green card.
02:53So I was super excited, of course.
02:55I was able to go back to Mexico City for the first time in over a year.
02:58And I started planning a wedding.
03:01We had already talked to a wedding planner.
03:03It was my friend, my very close friend.
03:04We did the tasting of the menu.
03:07I bought a dress and everything was, you know, going on as planned.
03:13I had been hearing from Malcolm about Mexican weddings.
03:16Mexican weddings, Mexican weddings.
03:18This party is going to be so fun because every time we hang out, it's so fun.
03:21I went to Miami in February for my bachelorette trip.
03:26And like some of my friends were already concerned, like, hey, do you think it's going to be a big
03:30issue?
03:31But it was still not something that we thought was going to affect us so, so close.
03:36My parents and some of my friends in Boston and New York and the East Coast were starting to kind
03:43of raise a couple flags as it was getting a little more serious.
03:46For them to be able to not have that experience, you feel for them and try to, in our individual
03:51way, which is probably a different approach, like let them know, hey, anything you can help with, we have your
03:56back.
03:56I couldn't wrap my head around the concept that this could affect their wedding.
04:01And like, I was just heartbroken for them before it even happened.
04:03She was much calmer and handled it a lot better than I did.
04:06My initial reaction was kind of anger and then I was sad and then I was kind of resentful.
04:12And I was like, well, you know, if people don't want to come, then they won't come.
04:15Half the reason we're doing this is your guests.
04:18And if your guests aren't going to come, this is something that's really worth doing.
04:22We started doing Zoom with my dad and my sisters a couple of, maybe like a year and a half
04:26or two years ago.
04:28And I told Malcolm, why don't we do like a toast with all of our friends, like our closest friends.
04:34I think I can get like a hundred people on Zoom.
04:37It was just something that I thought maybe could uplift their spirits.
04:42I'm sure it wasn't like this on their end. On the surface, they seemed really laid back and like controlled.
04:48I am a very structured person.
04:50There was like an itinerary.
04:51It was a hundred percent hurt. I was kind of...
04:53He was so sad that he wouldn't cooperate on anything.
04:56Well, I was also sort of dubious. I didn't think anything would happen.
04:59I'm like, yeah, five of my friends will show up. We'll say cheers and that'll be it.
05:03It went on for a very long time.
05:05Oh, yeah.
05:06It went like all night.
05:08Drink. Cheers.
05:10I'm going to open a pile of champagne.
05:11Anyone who has anything they want to open or anything else.
05:15The idea behind it was kind of quarantine formal.
05:18I wore a tuxedo shirt with my bathrobe over it.
05:21Bought herself like a full white jumpsuit.
05:24But then I switched into the dress that I used on the civil ceremony.
05:27It was kind of a hodgepodge of wedding accessories.
05:31And some friends sent us a cake and...
05:34We did shots of tequila.
05:35We did shots of mezcal and tequila, yeah.
05:37Lots of toast later.
05:39It was a lot of fun.
05:44I totally felt the peer pressure to drink, like I would have at a wedding, which I would
05:47expect nothing less from these guys.
05:49Getting a little funky, but that's totally okay because they're in the confines of their
05:53own home.
05:54No drinking and driving.
05:55Nothing to worry about.
05:56At this point, we were all kind of so raw with what was happening that no one was sort of
06:00in the position of like, hey, in the future with your marriage.
06:04Because everyone's like, I don't really know what to tell you because I've never been quarantined.
06:07And that sucks.
06:08I've never been quarantined.
06:09I've never had to postpone a wedding.
06:11I think they made a really hard, really smart decision that a lot of people wouldn't have been able to
06:15like bring themselves to do when it was this early on and there were that many unknowns.
06:18I don't think I ever want to do a Zoom wedding again, though.
06:21I think that like this was, this was the one.
06:24We just want the bar to be that.
06:25We set a very high bar.
06:26Yeah.
06:26And, you know, it's a good one and done.
06:28Came in, nailed it, crushed it.
06:30Don't focus on the wedding.
06:31Focus on the day after the wedding.
06:33That's your everyday life.
06:34All of the big things are going to last for a couple of hours.
06:37It's just a party.
06:38It's just a party.
06:39Distance or country or political issues or immigration.
06:44We've always kind of pushed through and figured out how to make it work.
06:47Being together and loving each other.
06:49Coronavirus or border walls are not going to stop us from being together.
06:52Love is stronger than all that crime.
06:55Next time.
06:55Next time on our third attempt to get married.
