This One Goes to Eleven

Happy anniversary to us! Today is the 11th anniversary of Thomas and my wedding. Particularly cool is that it falls on the exact day as the year we were married - the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. The weather is also similar - overcast and gray - although today there is a steady drizzle which we were spared on our actual wedding day.

We were married at McMenamin's Edgefield, which used to be the county poor farm. It's a gorgeous historic location with several old buildings and beautiful grounds. We had the ceremony in the Power Station Theater and the reception in the Power Station Attic. We had fabulous Irish music by Randal Bays and the Rashers, the food was yummy, and the company was fantastic. Here we are in the lovely gardens.


As part of our ceremony, we made this wish:

We want to recognize today that this ceremony, this day of transformation and joy, is something that is being denied to same-sex couples. To our gay and lesbian friends gathered here, as you witness today this knitting of two hearts and lives, may you also receive our wish and urgent hope that when you find your soulmates, you also will be able, if you wish, to choose this path in legality, acceptance, and celebration.

So we are thrilled that this anniversary brings the decision by the California Supreme Court to give same-sex couples the constitutional right to marry. And what sets California's law apart from the law in Massachusetts is that California allows couples from other states to get married in their state, as well. We're hoping that the California decision will set off a trend across the country so that all same-sex couples will be allowed to marry legally someday.

Today we had planned to celebrate by actually leaving both children with the grandparents and going to see the new Narnia movie, but unfortunately Elliot is feeling under the weather, so we're all laying low instead. So today at 3:30pm, instead of being lost in the world of Aslan and the Pevensie children, we'll reflect on our vows (inspired by Rilke):

Thomas and Brittney, do you both promise to be the guardians of each other's solitude, to love one another with what in each of you in unfinished, with what in each of you is still changing? Do you promise to love, respect, and ennoble one another? To continue to grow, teach, and learn from one another? To support each other with compassion, humor, and grace? Do you vow to honor each other's differences, so that your two spirits compliment one another, and so you share with one another your deepest and most unique thoughts, hopes, and fears? Do you promise to take care of each other, and to approach one another always with complete honesty, with palms upturned? And do you both promise to make of this life together a home, and to hold one another always as soulmates and closest friends?

We do.