Marriage during COVID-19 pandemic: Bindiya and Shawn Bissessar’s love story

By Shane Marks

French novelist, Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin once said, “There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved” and that is the unofficial rule for fairly newlyweds, Bindiya and her husband, Shawn Bissessar as they journey onwards on the path of love.
These two young lovebirds met unexpectedly through the social media platform, Facebook, specifically, Facebook Dating. Bindiya, who did the retelling of the story, recalled being on the site with no intentions of being involved in a romantic relationship with anyone, but, as faith would have it, her lack of romantic engagement piqued the interest of her then-future husband who wanted to find love.
“I was just looking for a friend, and he popped up as a suggestion, well, actually, he clicked that he was interested in me. The reason that I accepted him is because he’s from my village and I’ve never seen him before,” Bindiya recalled.
Apparently, the two destined souls grew up in the same village and never knew the other existed. This shocking revelation is what prompted Bindiya to reach out, the curiosity to know more about her fellow villager grew. After communicating for a while, they became “really good friends” before they decided to take it to the next step and date.
“The point in my life where I met him, I wasn’t looking for a relationship, I was just looking for a friend, and we became really good friends, and we fell in love, we started to date.”
Shawn travels a lot for work, and that distance he puts between them when he’s away creates a longing within Bindiya that she described as sometimes intense, but does not compare to the feeling she gets when she gets to see him.
“We share a long-distance relationship since he’s not always around, but I think that that’s one of the biggest contributions to our relationship growing stronger, the long distance between us. You’re not seeing someone for so long, physically, but you have to have that trust and that faith that things will work out. Sometimes it can be very tense, sometimes it can be very frustrating to know that you miss this person so much. Yes, this is the life you choose. Sometimes you’re stronger than that,” Bindiya said.

COVID-19 wedding
Shawn proposed to Bindiya in 2020 and the couple got married in 2021; the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic for Guyana. The pandemic attempted to put a damper on this young budding love.

Having already adjusted to Shawn being away when the pandemic hit, which brought with it the culture of staying away from persons to secure one’s self, their relationship just went on as it started.
They did what they would normally do. They talked over the phone for hours. Had Zoom calls. And when the rare moments came around when they could finally, physically embrace each other, they just stayed home and had a quiet dinner.
Though Bindiya likes to go out with her friends and have a good time, she admitted that the pandemic did not affect her relationship. They were disciplined enough to understand that the COVID-19 pandemic required them to make tough sacrifices.
“We still have our regular routine but in a different sense. Whereas we do movie time at home, we cook and have our dates at home. Sometimes we will have online dates too. He could be in quarantine and I can be at home still having our dates.
“We have this discipline, we have this understanding that we’re faced with a pandemic, we have to make a sacrifice. We couldn’t live life like the normal like before. We had to make a change.”
Bindiya truly felt the impact of the pandemic when she was ready to get married. With the pandemic still in full swing, she realised that her wedding could not be the way she always thought of it. Changes had to be made. Cutting the guest list a few persons short was the biggest change for Bindiya.
“The only challenging part of it for me was that a lot of persons looked forward to being at my wedding. A lot of people who were happy to see us together wanted to be there. But the pandemic didn’t allow that,” she sadly explained.
Bindiya was torn at the fact that one of her closest aunts, among others, who were in Canada at the time, could not be at her wedding because of the travel restrictions many countries around the world, like Canada, had to face due to the pandemic.
Bindiya and Shawn had a traditional Indian wedding that took almost a week to conclude. During that time, they followed all the COVID-19 guidelines to make sure that their closest family and friends, who were there supporting them all the way, were safe.
Bindiya hopes that when the pandemic is over, she can have the wedding reception she never had so that all of her family and friends can be there.