Amanda Stuart flew to New York City from Texas in order to join her fellow nurses on the frontlines fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
But love managed to follow her to the Big Apple and now she’s a happily married woman.
On the evening of May 10, Stuart exchanged “I do’s” with Ronnie Dooley in Times Square. They had masks on, of course, but were joined by their families and her fellow travel nurses from Coney Island Hospital. The disaster staffing agency Krucial Staffing had assigned her there as a team lead.
“You love me in ways I could never have imagined,” Stuart, 42, said in her vows. “You have truly made my life complete. All the worries, the stress and fears I’ve carried for so many years are silenced in your presence.”
“You are the one and only who has shown me true love, compassion, selflessness,” Dooley, 37, reciprocated in his vows. “Through thick and thin and perseverance, compassion and true love for us has always superseded anything that life has thrown at us.”
“There’s no other way to describe you but perfect — perfect for me,” he continued.
Their love story had a bittersweet start. Dooley’s father figured in a tragic motorcycle accident in 2011 and was badly hurt. Stuart was his nurse in the ICU for 14 days straight until he expired from his injuries. At the funeral, she was asked to speak and the pair had stayed close. Two years ago on Memorial Day weekend, their relationship turned romantic after Stuart spent eight hours on the road for their first date.
“We have been inseparable from that day,” she tells PEOPLE.
Their nuptials were originally scheduled for May 30 in Arkansas, Stuart’s home state, but the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to those plans. Since the wedding wasn’t going to happen any time soon, Stuart went to New York from Midland, Texas, where she wanted to help on the frontlines of the pandemic in the US.
“When she got here, it was just kind of a run of the mill joke with her friends, like, ‘Hey, you should get married here,’ ” Dooley tells PEOPLE. “And she said, ‘Yeah, that’d be a great idea.’ Well then, everybody just kind of pitched in and got on board, and it just kind of snowballed.”
Soon enough, strangers started donating both their time and their talents so that Stuart could get her dream wedding even in the current crisis.point 253 |
Alexandria Render, the director of emergency management at Krucial Staffing, was actually the first one to get the plans off the ground.point 115 | Kerry Botensten and Peri-Gay Walker volunteered as wedding coordinators; Blake Jamieson filmed the video; Meagan Rachman of Rachman Photography took photos of the event.point 261 | 1
Ode a la Rose donated red and white flowers, a nod to Stuart’s favorite band Guns N’ Roses. DJ Lauren Mayhew took care of the music, including “Nobody But You” by Blake Shelton, the couple’s first dance song.
Stuart’s co-workers served as bridesmaids. All throughout, everyone worked to adhere to social distancing guidelines and wore masks.
“We’re not used to this kind of stuff — we’re from a small town,” Dooley told PEOPLE during the ceremony. “It is surreal.”
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