Three Weddings, Two Women, One Marriage

Something old, something new, something civil, something true...

Photo by Albert Palmer.

‘One way to tell my love story is this: I have been married three times in two countries to one woman…’

This week I am working on a proposal for something new and so, as the rhyme (sort of) goes, I’m sending out something old. Specifically, an essay I wrote for the anthology Queer Life, Queer Love, which was published in 2021 and begins with the quote above. As a former wedding blogger and wedding feature—for the sadly defunct and gone queer wedding websites So You’re EnGAYged and On a Bicycle Built for Two—this wasn’t the first time I’d written about our weddings, but it was the first in print. More importantly, to me, it starts the work of illuminating why we got married (so many times). This year, it will be fifteen years since Alex and I exchanged rings and signed papers in front of family and friends—but it has only been ten of those years that we’ve had a marriage certificate—and all the rights afforded to us, in both our countries. These are not rights I take for granted.

I’ll be back in a few weeks with another (free) newsletter. Next time I’ll be discussing another wearable collection for which I am wondering if this should be added (much to my wife’s almost guaranteed chagrin—but that’s why we have separate sides of the wardrobe).

In the meantime, have a read, pick up a copy of Queer Life, Queer Love (or, Queer Life, Queer Love: The Second Anthology), but most importantly: take care of yourself and each other. When it all feels too big, start small, local, with community…

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Three Weddings and a Marriage Equality Movement

from Queer Life, Queer Love (2021) edited by Matthew Bates, Golnoosh Nour, Sarah & Kate Beal

One way to tell my love story is this: I have been married three times in two countries to one woman.

This was not the original plan, but borders and voters and legal systems got in the way of any straightforward path to a federally recognised union. Others who fell in love when we did have similar stories. This is ours.

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In the early years of university, it didn’t seem possible that I was continually crossing paths with my future wife, Alex. She was the friend of my co-workers and my first girlfriend, the British girl at the parties whose references I understood just little bit better after the year I lived in Ireland. My first memory of Alex is at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, where our university’s college took over the beachside amusement park for the evening. I can picture her in the queue for the wooden roller coaster, laughing at some rude joke I’d just made. Fast-forward two years when I kiss her at a party unexpectedly and I see fireworks, but I don’t have the wherewithal to make a move. A year passes and I move into her house, needing a place to live for three months, and it’s a matter of days before I decide there is something there. Just a few weeks later I confess that I’m in love with her—and I’m elated when she says she’s in love with me, too. When she moves back to England two months later, I can only think of how I want to be with her—but marriage is not my first thought.