A long-distance couple who spent 20 months apart due to Covid-19 travel restrictions recently got married.

Australian man, Chris Quealy, 72, was given dispensation to leave Australia, after he proposed to Penny Steven, 69, from Amersham, England, over Zoom video calling app in 2020.

The couple were reunited at Heathrow Airport, UK in October 2021 and their wedding took place in Buckinghamshire on Saturday, January 8.

Quealy said it was “brilliant” to finally be husband and wife. “We are now man and wife,” Quealy said.

“It’s taken a long time and a lot of challenges but we are here – we did it, we did it, we did it!”
The couple said their wedding day was “beautiful”

The wedding was live-streamed for Chris’s family in Australia who were unable to travel for the occasion die to Covid-19 rules.
“All the family got to see it so that’s the main thing,” Penny said.
Penny, a mum of four, met grandfather Chris, who is from the Gold Coast in Australia, in May 2015, during a solo trip in Spain.

The couple regularly travelled the 10,000 or so miles between their homes, with Penny returning to Amersham England, from her last visit to Australia on 3 February 2020.
Chris was supposed to payback with his own visit to the UK to see her but lockdown hit in March 2020.

Luckily for Chris, in August, the Australian government granted him a travel exemption so the couple could get married in England.
Penny said it had been a “very tough” time for the couple, who had been having twice-daily phone conversations.
“It has made us stronger,” she said.