Lifestyle

My ringside seat on the decade: 'Someone had to be the first gay couple to marry'


David asked me to marry him years ago. Back then, a civil partnership was the only option. It had been introduced by Tony Blair in 2004; I was always surprised, given the size of his majority, that he didn’t introduce gay marriage instead. But we didn’t rush down that route: we knew that marriage would one day be an option.

I had taken our two sons to the House of Commons on 5 February 2013, as MPs voted 400 to 175 in favour of introducing marriage equality. We wanted them to be part of it; they’d been on Pride marches with us, but this was a great opportunity to celebrate our progress.

In December 2013, the date that ceremonies could take place was announced: 29 March 2014. I started calling councils close to where we live in London to find a licensed venue. Someone had to be the first, or one of the first, gay couples to marry that night and I didn’t want that honour to go to anyone else. I’m an activist, and aside from the personal side of things, I wanted to be part of that broader progress.

The day itself was flipped upside down: we had our reception first, at 9pm on 28 March, at Islington town hall, with champagne and canapes. It was a huge rush as we were busy with life, work and family: I wore an old suit that didn’t fit as I’d lost weight in the run-up to the day, and hadn’t ironed my shirt.

The personal part of the ceremony started at 11.30pm, in the same building. We had 100 guests, friends and family, and our sons’ school friends. The registrar wasn’t allowed in the room until midnight, for the legal ceremony – so we wanted them to use the shortest possible form of words. Afterwards, there were lots of cheers and hugs.

We went outside around 12.20am, where there were a lot of people, cameras and press, waiting. The kids were inside, watching through a window. We discovered months later that they had been filming us, and talking about it, in the background; it’s one of our happiest memories of the night.

My mum took them to a nearby hotel to go to bed, and David and I were whisked away by friends in a large limo to a gay club in Soho that was under threat of demolition. At the end of the night, around 4am, we went back to the town hall to clean up, as the room had to be ready for the next people. Afterwards, we were so tired we went home to crash for a few hours, completely forgetting we were booked into a hotel.

The following day we had a big brunch, and then hosted our main wedding reception – held in the Strangers’ Dining Room at the Palace of Westminster. It was the height of David Cameron’s austerity measures, and he had opened up the palace to outside bookings.

Same-sex marriage had followed a gradual progression of LGBTQ rights. Does society follow legislation, or is it the other way round? The law was certainly not keeping up with societal changes. But gay marriage has brought a greater societal shift in the way we view gay relationships; in the eyes of some, it has legitimised them. Marriage hasn’t changed our own relationship. I wear a wedding band, and thought I would feel self-conscious – a lot of people assume I have a wife – but I don’t.

This isn’t the end of LGBTQ struggles. But it is progress. Marriage may be a flawed institution, but equality does matter.

As told to Hannah Booth

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