It was love at first Facebook message.
Newlyweds Ayse and Darrin have a unique pandemic romance: The long-distance lovers recently tied the knot over Zoom, despite never meeting in person.
The transatlantic couple met through 24-year-old Darrin’s mother, Kenda, 56.
Ayse, 26, connected with her now mother-in-law via a Facebook group intended for connecting digital pen pals across the world.
Kenda mentioned she had a son close to Ayse’s age, and the pair began sending messages from Detroit to the UK in July 2020. Soon they were tying up the phone lines and data streams chatting, the five-hour time difference barely an obstacle.
“It was during the pandemic, so I wasn’t working as I’d been furloughed and just altered my sleep pattern, so I was sleeping at the same time Darrin was,” Ayse, from Lancaster, England, told SWNS. “We’d be on video call and just be chatting when we fall asleep – then usually when I wake up, he’s still there sleeping.”
Despite COVID-19-related travel restrictions keeping the two from meeting in person, Darrin formally asked Ayse to be his girlfriend in November 2020, and they began planning for Ayse to come to the US.
In July, Ayse, her mother and her father bucked travel restrictions preventing UK residents from flying directly to the US by flying to Mexico. After 15 days there, they flew to Detroit.
It looked like the partners would finally meet, but US immigration claimed Ayse “didn’t have enough money in her bank to support herself during her stay” and “didn’t have strong enough ties to the UK” and she was turned away.
“I think they thought that if they let me into the US then I’d never leave because of Darrin,” Ayse said. “I would never have done that, and it was so heartbreaking to be so close to him in the same city, but not be allowed through the border. I was put on the next flight home and cried the whole way back.”
At that point, Darrin was sick of waiting to meet Ayse and suggested a “special date night” where the two dressed up for their Zoom hang.
“When he answered the call he seemed so nervous which was unlike him – but I soon understood why when he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him,” Ayse said. “I couldn’t believe it. He said he’d been planning to propose when I came to Detroit but couldn’t wait any longer to ask. Despite never meeting, there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to marry Darrin.”
With their families’ blessings, they took advantage of a new law in Utah legalizing international virtual wedding ceremonies. On Aug. 19, they tied the knot in an online ceremony.
While travel restrictions between the US and UK are now lifted, the pair must await a visa for Ayse before she can finally come to visit.
“We don’t know when I’ll be able to get over there but are trying to be as positive as we can while we wait,” Ayse said, but she sees the fact that the two still haven’t met as proof of their bond.
“As we haven’t met in person yet we haven’t been able to have a physical relationship, which means that our marriage is based off of more than that,” she said.