NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- When frontline nurse Ashley Isaacs weds her fiancé on Sunday after a months-long separation, one very important person will be unable to attend due to COVID-19 restrictions: her beloved grandmother.
“We love our family. We love our friends. They were with us and supported us through our most challenging times. We want them there with us, and we can’t, and that is killing us,” Isaacs said in an interview with 1010 WINS’ Brigitte Quinn on Friday.
“It’s hard. I mean, even my grandmother can’t make it, and that’s just breaking my heart,” she added. “But you have to just keep remembering that they want the best for you… and everybody’s been so supportive and understanding that they can’t come.”
But while Isaacs’ grandmother won’t be there for the wedding ceremony, which is set to broadcast on 1010 WINS (listen live here) and livestream on Facebook Live at 5 p.m. Sunday, she did make a surprise appearance during her granddaughter’s interview with 1010 WINS on Friday.
In a recording Quinn played for Isaacs, her grandmother wished her granddaughter and her fiancé the very best ahead of their big day.
“Congratulations, Israel and Ashley, on your special wedding day. Just look around you and all the love that surrounds you,” her grandmother said. “Israel, can’t wait to meet your family. Love you both very, very much. Have a very, very, very special day.”
Isaacs broke down as she heard her grandmother’s voice on the airwaves.
“That was beautiful,” she said through tears after the recording ended. “She’s my best friend.”
Isaacs, who works as a nurse at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, has only seen her fiancé Israel Reches twice since mid-March, when he finished his last round of chemotherapy for a case of Hodgkin’s lymphoma that is now in remission.
“When I left him after chemotherapy, it was kind of like, ‘When are we going to see each other?’” Isaacs said. Recalling that March conversation moved her to tears.
“I’m sorry, I’m so emotional when I talk about it. It’s been an emotional time,” she said, choking up. “I cannot wait to see him for the wedding.”
The couple has had to make a number of concessions planning a wedding during a pandemic — including limiting the number of guests and foregoing a reception — but there was one thing Isaacs decided not to scale back on: her wedding dress.
“It is from Kleinfelds, and it is extravagant,” she said with a laugh.
“I thought we were having a hall wedding with 300-something people, and I thought many times if I should change my dress to something lower-key, because now it’s in the backyard,” she explained. “But I said, you know what? I’m going to wear it. I’m going to have these pictures… and I want my future husband to see me in this dress, and hopefully his jaw drops.”
Over the past few months, Isaacs says she has taken comfort in one of her favorite sayings: “A little bit of light vanishes a lot of darkness.”
“This little bit of light, this wedding, is just going to banish everything that we have been through, and the hardships that we have had to overcome,” she said.
Having their wedding broadcast live on the radio, meanwhile, will restore some of the excitement she and Reches lost when they had to limit the number of guests that would attend, she said.
“You know, you lose the excitement of having all the hundreds of people there, but I gain the excitement of having everybody being able to listen (and) hopefully gain some hope from this,” she said. “I know everybody’s going through such a hard time right now, and no one is without hardship and challenges.”
“If it brings one smile to someone’s face then, you know, I’m happy we put our wedding out for everybody,” she added. “I’m happy to do it to make someone happy.”