New York couple weds at border crossing so Canadian family can be part of the big day

Having first met 35 years ago on a ski slope, Karen Mahoney and Brian Ray figured they'd waited long enough to get married, and agreed to a very short engagement. Only one thing stood in their way: the closed U.S.-Canada border.

The couple lives in New York, but Mahoney's parents and 96-year-old grandmother live in Quebec. Before the pandemic, she was able to make weekly visits back home, but with the border closed, those trips came to an end. Mahoney and Ray set Sept. 25 as their wedding date, holding out hope that the U.S.-Canada border would reopen by that time, allowing Mahoney's family to travel to New York. When they realized this wasn't going to happen, their friend, a Border Patrol agent, stepped in with a suggestion.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.