Chris and Jennifer Zaccagnino became husband and wife March 29, in a beautiful outdoor ceremony at their Hampton home. They exchanged vows before a dozen or so witnesses in a pasture usually occupied by their horses.

  The entire event was organized in two days. The beach wedding, which had been planned for six months, was a casualty of the COVID-19 virus and the government restrictions resulting from it.

  “We were about a week out when we found out,” said Jennifer about the closing of the beaches in Pensacola, where she hoped to get married. “We held out hope as long as we could.”

  She fell in love with that part of Florida after a few previous visits, and it was her obvious choice when the couple got engaged last August. They researched a few wedding planners and chose one who kept working with them right up until the last minute. An alternate site in southern Alabama was also considered.

  “We ended up getting the wedding rescheduled for June, but we wanted to go ahead and get it done because this was the weekend we had been planning on for a while,” said Chris, who joined the Hampton Police Department five years ago after retiring from the military.

  A wedding in March was always part of the plan, because March is a special month for them. They first met in March. They began dating in March. They moved in together in March.

  They originally chose the 28th so they could have a beach wedding and perhaps a bit more warm weather than if they did it earlier in the month. They even drove to Tallahassee one evening, spending the night with Jennifer’s sister in south Georgia, so they could get a marriage license the next morning and come straight back home.

  All of these plans appeared to be for naught as that final week began. Then they came up with another plan.

  “I threw it out there,” said Jennifer. “I asked him if he wanted to wait until June or just go ahead and do it.”

  They decided on the latter. The first step was to see if they could get another license here, since Henry County and the rest of Georgia was essentially in lockdown by this time. They made some calls and found out that Henry County Probate Court was still issuing marriage licenses, and they secured an appointment.

  When it came to finding someone to actually officiate the ceremony, they got help from an unexpected source – Lynwood Dunn, the owner of the Crossfit gym where they work out. Their workout group at the gym contains some of their closest friends. They stayed in contact by phone after the facility closed for COVID-19 and even continued some of their workouts via Zoom video conference.

  “I’ll do it,” said Dunn, reminding them that he was an ordained minister. “Just let me know when.”

  “How about Sunday afternoon?”

  He agreed, and it was set. It was Friday, which meant they had two days to get things ready, according to Jennifer.

  “My 11-year-old helped put together an arch out of some old wood,” she said. “We grabbed some decorations and threw them out in the yard. We got a cake from Publix and a few other things, and that was it.”

  They called a few friends, informed them of the change in plans, and asked if they wanted to come over for the wedding. They said yes. Attendance was about 15 in all, including Jennifer’s parents and her three children. A couple of coworkers from Chris’ shift at the police department stopped by as well.

  With a 12-acre spread, there was plenty of room for social distancing in the fresh air of the outdoors. “We made sure there were no horse droppings,” Jennifer said with a laugh.

  So despite some stressful moments in the days leading up to it, they were able to become husband and wife without even leaving their yard. And they got it done in March, as they hoped they could.

  There is still a beach ceremony on the calendar, now scheduled for June 26. They decided to do that since they had already paid for it, and their goal is to have a slightly more formal ceremony that some extended family members and other friends can attend after the coronavirus scare has (hopefully) gone.

  “We both wanted a beach wedding,” said Chris. “So we’re still going to go forward with that.”

  He will have one other surprise in store, courtesy of his new wife.

“I still have the dress I bought for the beach wedding,” she said. “Chris still hasn’t seen it.”