Victoria Zebro and Steve Keib were a love-at-first-site sort of couple, well for Steve anyway. They met at the Penn Tap Room in Doylestown over cocktails and had their first dinner together at the William Penn Inn. They had so much in common, a love for fine dining, an appreciation of music. They each had amazing daughters from a previous marriage. After one year as friends and three years as a couple, they decided to tie the knot. Wedding planning was going along perfectly, right up until the global pandemic shut down their venue and travel restrictions meant that none of Victoria's overseas family could attend the nuptials.

What was the original Date of your wedding?

May 31st 2020

What were you planning, size and style?

It was looking like 100 – 120 guests and fairly formal. Invitations had already gone out.

When did you realize you were going to have to change your plans?

“We started getting more nervous in March – we had been watching the virus spread across Europe, particularly Italy and by the end of March we knew we had to start considering a date change. By then all our international guests had flights and hotels booked. It was a tough decision and I think we were in denial for a week or two before starting to consider our options.”

What did you decide to do?

We decided to postpone the wedding to October 18th 2020. We hoped 5 months would give us time for things to settle down. Obviously this was completely off base in retrospect!

In October things were just as bad (if not worse) then they had been before. It had looked hopeful over the summer, but as time progressed things looked worse and worse with international travel bans and a general feeling that moving forward with the wedding would have been the wrong thing to do and would have made guests uncomfortable and put them at risk.

We made the decision to cancel the second wedding date at that time, but the day wasn’t a total bust. We had our wedding photographer Susan Stripling meet us in Philadelphia and we did a formal portrait photo shoot at the Grand Lodge of Philadelphia wearing my real wedding gown. I’m not sure if I’ll get a chance to wear it in the future and I really wanted Steve to get to see it at least once.

Photo Courtesy William Thomas Cain

So, you are married now, and your anniversary is on Valentine's Day. Do you feel like it was all meant to be?

Well, we got really lucky. Back in February 2020 when we were just starting to hear rumors of a new virus, I had a health insurance break and Steve and I had decided to have a mini ceremony at that time. The intent was absolutely still that we would have our big family and friends wedding in May.

We had planned our mini ceremony with less than a week’s notice and I got a little carried away…. for which I’m now very grateful! I wandered into Salem church office and asked if someone could perform a short ceremony that coming Friday – Pastor David Greene came in on his day off for us and was wonderful.

I already had my veil and wedding shoes for the big wedding and planned to wear those with a dress from my closet, but decided to run out and see if I could find a relatively inexpensive white dress to wear. I found one off the rack that I liked and brought it home with me. I think that was on the Tuesday.

By Wednesday I decided that if I had a white dress then we might as well have flowers, so I ran to Costco and the dollar store and bought some supplies and made up bouquets for myself and the girls.

Then I thought if I had a dress and flowers, it might be nice to have someone take a few photos. I contacted my photography teacher William Cain from some years back and asked him whether he had a spare 15 minutes on Friday morning. Very luckily he said yes!

On Thursday night I messaged a local hair and makeup artist Scharle Pozadas asking if she could meet me at 8am the next morning. She could.

So the whole thing spiraled into an actual event in the space of 5 days. In retrospect I think it was all meant to be.

I even found someone who could play the church piano for me to walk down the aisle to. I never even got to say hello to her – she had 10 minutes between appointments and played for us with her son waiting in the car.”

I see these gorgeous pictures that you have, of just you, Steve and the girls. Where are these pictures from?

William Cain was kind enough to come and take pictures for us with less than two days notice. I was so happy he did at the time and even more so now.

Are you still planning the wedding of your dreams?

I think it will look different. It was so disappointing not to have our parents, family and friends come. The dates they were meant to arrive were hard. Probably harder than the actual missed wedding days.

Photo Courtesy William Thomas Cain

We would still like to celebrate. Maybe a renewal of vows and cocktail party in our garden with our families and friends.

Are you still planning the wedding of your dreams?I think it will look different. It was so disappointing not to have our parents, family and friends come. The dates they were meant to arrive were hard. Probably harder than the actual missed wedding days.

We would still like to celebrate. Maybe a renewal of vows and cocktail party in our garden with our families and friends.

Pastor Greene made our ceremony so much more special than I ever could have imagined. He included our girls and it was incredibly meaningful. At the time we were expecting to have a big wedding afterwards, but our vows are the most important part and we got to have those.

Do you need an officiant? Voting is going on now to find the Happening Officiant for 2021. The nominees are….
As you wish Wedding Officiant (Quakertown)
Loretta J. DeGenova (Doylestown)
Rverand Susan Sirutis (Doylestown
Reverand Kent Foster (Warminster)

Learn more at Happening List

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