Meet the first Belfast gay couples to get married – and the lovers still fighting for justice

It’s a moment they fought years to see.

Northern Ireland will finally see its first same-sex weddings this week after a historic change – six years after gay marriage became legal in the UK.

Sharni Edwards and Robyn Peoples will be the first to tie the knot after MPs, sick of a suspended Stormont failing to act, changed the law from Westminster.

Yet the fight goes on – as couples in civil partnerships are still in legal limbo.

The government is still running a “consultation” on how to convert their unions into full-blown marriages, or how those who want a religious element to the ceremony should wed.

Most of the headlines focus on the politics and the policy. So we spoke to some of the real people behind the news. What’s it like to declare your love in a world hemmed in by politics and the law?

Here are three of the couples who’ll be leading the way.

Sharni, 27, and Robyn, 26: ‘We’re marrying on Tuesday – and our dresses are the only surprise left’

Sharni Edwards, 27, and Robyn Peoples, 26, will make history on Tuesday as the first gay couple to get married in Northern Ireland.

Six years to the day since they met, the pair will each wear white dresses at a 100-strong celebration beside the beach in Co Antrim.

“That’s the only thing we’ve kept secret from each other, said Robyn. “We haven’t seen each other’s dresses.

“I’m going to walk down the aisle first with my mummy and my daddy, then Shani’s going to come in after with her two brothers.”

Waitress Sharni, from Brighton, met care assistant Robyn at a gay bar during a week away in her native Belfast.

They were inseparable by the end of the week – and spent eight months flying between the two cities every weekend.

“We were going ice skating, to the cinema, all that sort of thing, then we realised that was what we wanted to do – to be with each other,” said Robyn.

Sharni added: “We were both working full time, Monday to Friday, so every Friday night we would get a flight and be back Sunday night ready for work on the Monday morning.”

The pair moved in together in Brighton but Robyn got homesick for Belfast.

Sharni had “no idea” the law was even different in Northern Ireland when she moved over.

“It wasn’t until I met Robyn that she opened my eyes to reality,” she said. “I thought ‘oh my God, they are so far behind us’. I couldn’t comprehend how we were able to get married in England and they weren’t in Northern Ireland.”

But they refused to come to England to get married – even if that’s where Sharni grew up.

Sharni said: “We couldn’t comprehend flying over to England to get married to then fly back and it not even count, or mean anything.

“We’re building our lives in Northern Ireland. We want to have a family in Northern Ireland. Our house is in Northern Ireland.

“We couldn’t comprehend that we’d have to go to a different country to get married.”

Robyn said there is “definitely” more prejudice in Northern Ireland – including comments as they hold hands down the street. 

But she said: “That’s all down to our politicians. They’re putting fences in front of us which give people the right to discriminate against us.”

She added: “I work with the elderly, so I have people I look after who are 99 and would ask about Sharni and know she’s my fiancee and have never judge.

“So I don’t agree with it being an age thing. It’s in people’s heads, it’s what they’re taught and what they accept that’s their choice.

“They don’t have to discriminate against anyone. I have the right to love who I want to love.”

Sharni and Robyn never intended to make history – they only got the date because they had booked a civil partnership already.

To their surprise it coincided with the first legal date for marriages in Northern Ireland. So they turned it into a marriage instead.

But they won’t have long to celebrate – they’re setting off for their Cyprus honeymoon at 6am the next day.

“We didn’t set out to be the first or have all this attention,” said Robyn.

“But we are grateful to be able to set the way for the rest of our community.”

John, 35, and Martin, 38: ‘We got a civil partnership – but it’s not the same’

When John O’Doherty, 35, met 38-year-old Martin Toland online six years ago, their first date was in Belfast’s MAC Theatre.

The musical theatre buffs went back to have the photos for their civil partnership – held in Valentine’s week two years ago.

But now John, director of Belfast’s The Rainbow Project, and Martin, a homeless hostel manager, are stuck in legal limbo because they can’t yet convert their civil partnership.

“It felt different during the ceremony,” said John. “The language we wanted to hear wasn’t there.

“We view ourselves as married, we refer to ourselves as husband and husband, and we don’t accept that our relationship is any less than a marriage.”

When they can finally convert, the pair won’t be repeating the massive party they had for their civil partnership – it was far too expensive, John jokes.

But they will be lining up to convert their status on the very first day it becomes legal.

He said: “I’ve been campaigning for eight years, and it’s wonderful to have been able to achieve the change in the law. But it’s bittersweet that we have to wait. It’s certainly a frustration.”

John said the long fight for marriage equality has impacted people’s lives and their health. But it means gay people are now more visible – and once you’re visible, you get acceptance.

“If you had said to my mum 20 years ago ‘gay men are dangerous’ she might have believed you – she didn’t have any other reference point,” he said.

“If you said that to her today you would get a slap across the face – because you’re talking about her son.”

Cara, 44, and Amanda, 39: ‘Back then you wouldn’t go to a gay bar. You’d get a taxi round the corner’

The Troubles were still raging when Cara McCann, 44, and Amanda McGurk, 39, grew up – there were bigger things to think about.

And Amanda “didn’t actually know what gay was” until she moved from a village in Co Derry to Belfast nearly two decades ago.

“When you would go to a gay bar you got a taxi to round the corner,” she said. “You didn’t get dropped off outside and certainly didn’t tell the driver you were going to a gay bar.

“In my lifetime people were still being criminalised in the north for being gay – until 1982.”

Gendered violence worker Amanda met HERe NI director Cara seven years ago at a family fun day. “I spent the entire day in bundles of nerves trying to ask her out,” she says.

Cara added: “Three years ago we decided to get engaged. We were on holiday in New York and Amanda just said ‘do you want to go and shop for some diamonds?’

“We knew it would likely be a civil partnership, but that wasn’t our preferred option. We wanted to get married but how much longer should we have had to wait?”

They had their civil partnership on Valentine’s Day last year – and spent years campaigning for equality, including bringing a petition to Downing Street.

So just like John and Martin they’re “heartbroken” to be stuck in legal limbo, watching the people they campaigned for marry first.

“The issue for me now is what this has created,” said Cara. “There is a hierarchy in the LGBT community.

“They’re called different things. It makes me feel that we are less than our heterosexual brothers and sisters. You don’t grow up saying ‘I can’t wait to enter into a civil partnership’ – you say ‘I can’t wait to get married.’

When it’s finally made legal to convert, “it will be like the January sales!” Amanda joked. “We will be the first in the queue!”