Not just a formality

Originally it was just going to be a formality. We were going to City Hall here in NYC to get legally married a week and a half before our ceremony. The ceremony was the “real” wedding and this was just something we had to do in preparation for it.

That’s all, no big deal.

We invited a few close friends, one that can’t make it to the ceremony and a few other close friends. Sade put on a nice dress and I, a jacket and tie.

We ride the subway and I become more excited, giddy and overwhelmed as each stop brings us closer. Sade smiles and asks if she needs to order me not to cry and I admit that would probably help.

We show up and literally pick a number, C803, and we wait. Friends offer to hold paperwork watch the TV screen for our number and keep us company. We laugh, people get misty eyed and so do I. What was supposed to be just a formality has become much more.

We’re surrounded by love, couples of every kind. I notice a few same sex couples and I’m proud to live in a state that recognizes love isn’t a sin.

Our witnesses sign on the dotted line and we wait for the justice to wave us into the ceremony room. Our friends start to sigh, squeal and some start to cry, I’m holding it all together surprisingly well.

The justice asks if we promise to love, honor……and at this point both Sade and I are thinking “don’t say ‘obey’, don’t say ‘obey’”…and she doesn’t and we know what the other is thinking.
I put the rings on Sade and she puts one on me and it’s like I’m in a dream.
The whole experience hits us both harder than we expected. We’re married now…legally.

It probably sounds sappy but it’s quite normal for us to glance at each-other and just smile, we’ve been together for almost five years and that hasn’t gone away, in fact it gets better.

Every now and then one of us will look at the other one and say “We’re married now!” and the other will yell back “I know right?”

What was originally just a formality is actually pretty significant and in under two weeks we’ll be surrounded by friends and family as we have the ceremony.

We’re both over the moon and everything is perfect.