Love in the Time of Covid

It’s impossible to know what might have happened without the pizza. But we do know that with it things turned out pretty well.

It started typically enough: at a bar. Arley Caballero and Tereza Bělašková met at a gathering at the Queen Anne Beer Hall in April of 2019. When Arley learned that Tereza liked to kayak, he hatched a plan. He had one kayak—surely a friend had one he could borrow. But that proved not to be true. With the days ticking down, he splurged on a second kayak. The date was on.

When Tereza showed up at Magnuson Park on the big day, she was carrying a Pagliacci pizza box. We need to eat, she said. So they ate and they paddled and the adventure led to another and another—almost always accompanied by a Pagliacci pizza.

“We went on more and more dates as the summer got hotter and hotter,” Arley said. “She kept bringing the pizza.”

Then the story took a twist. Tereza returned to the Czech Republic.

But after three long months, Tereza secured a visa to come back to Seattle for school. The pizza dates continued through the winter and this past March they decided to move in together. Soon after, they decided to get married.

In ordinary times, arranging wedding ceremonies is complicated. The pandemic made it nearly impossible. An additional complication was that Tereza’s parents live in the Czech Republic and international travel and Covid-19 don’t mix well. Then there was the ban on large gatherings.

What to do? A Zoom wedding?

Arley and Tereza tossed around ideas. Then they discovered Shotgun Ceremonies Wedding Chapel at the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall.

“We ended up getting married in a Vegas-style kind of thing,” Arley says. “During the whole Covid era it was nearly impossible to find somewhere to get married."

“We got married in a shipping container,” Tereza says.

The quick ceremony meant no family members would feel left out because everyone was left out! “It would have been awkward if my parents were there and not hers,” Arley says.

They left the shipping container husband and wife and headed for a honeymoon in the Olympic Mountains. But not without first stopping by the Pagliacci in Edmonds—a Margherita pizza for Tereza and the Sun-Ripened Tomato Combo for Arley. With Hurricane Ridge in the background they took their wedding photos.

Naturally, they raised a pizza to their future!