With how much grief and sadness the COVID pandemic caused, it’s lovely to hear the light points shining out from it – Kristin and Dewan actually met because of international borders shutting down. had been working as a university professor in Kabul, Afghanistan, and she was meant to be traveling to a conference in the US via London on 12 March 2020. Instead, international borders started shutting down and she stayed in London. Two days later, she was told that she couldn’t return to Afghanistan as her university compound was going into quarantine. She stayed in England and met Dewan, who is a Londoner, a couple of weeks later. They had both been in successful rock bands in their early twenties, so they bonded over their similar life experiences.

“The reality of planning our wedding was that most of what we did was determined by the practicalities of the pandemic,” Kristin told us. “Being an American working in Belgium during a time when most borders and registry offies and consular services were shut made for tricky international marriage planning. We had to find a place where we could get married, legally, to start with. It was impossible in England due to COVID, but possible in Scotland.” Due to their families being overseas, they figured if it was just the two of them they may as well elope to somewhere spectacularly beautiful, and settled on the Scottish highlands. And then they could think about what they actually wanted the wedding to be like.