Ever since Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray allowed religious places to reopen last month-with SOPs and safety protocols in place-the Sunday mass or the Holy Eucharist conducted at churches, has resumed. But for the first time in almost eight months, Dadar's Our Lady of Salvation church played host to a wedding earlier this week.

The wedding between Steffi Zefferino Fernandes and her husband Joannes Fernandes on December 8 was a small but intimate affair, with not more than 40 people attending it, mostly family members. Speaking with mid-day, Steffi said: "There was no shifting or shuffling of dates for our wedding. It was fixed to be on December 8 and that is when it was held. When we were planning the wedding last month and had met the priest to discuss the possibility of a pre-nuptial mass, it seemed unlikely that a full-fledged wedding would be allowed inside church, let alone with family members and with mass taking place since religious places were not open at the time. But mysteriously, this changed mid-November when religious places were allowed to reopen."