Two Beautiful Brides

“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no; it is an ever fixed mark, that looks on tempests, and is never shaken”.   

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 116

I remember reading these words when I was a teenager and thinking that’s the kind of love I want, wild, passionate, all encompassing.  I’ve always taken it for granted that I could have it.  That I would choose a partner, that we would get married and build a family, or in our case family came first and marriage second.  Regardless, there were no obstacles in my way, other than maybe myself and a tendency to be over zealous in my wooing!

The beautiful brides 

But the words never rang truer to me then recently as I watched my cousin Grace, having been escorted up the aisle by her father, wait to greet her beautiful bride to be, Carol, who was also walked up the aisle hand in hand with her father.  The emotion in the room was palpable.  This incredible couple had fought for their special day.  A day Grace said that growing up, she thought she would never have.   They had knocked on doors and handed out fliers and been compelled to explain their love.  They were ridiculed by some, closed minded, bigoted, determined to hold on to an archaic belief that love can be prescribed.  But mainly they were celebrated, by an overwhelming majority and watching them exchange their vows, in their beautiful wedding gowns, I was acutely aware that their love mattered more than mine, because they fought for it, they defended it and they won.

My emotion grew as I listened to my uncle John talk about the love, pride and the incredible respect he holds for his daughter and his new daughter in law, although, I know he has viewed Carol as a daughter for many years now.  A 90-year old aunt our ours cheered and clapped.  My own 73-year old father said that finally he understood, it doesn’t matter who you love, it just matters that you love them.  I have enormous respect for his honesty. You can be dubious about something, without labeling it as wrong, or other or different. 

Grace's colleagues in the Irish Naval providing a guard of honour 

The thing I love most in the aftermath of that wonderful day (definitely not the honeymoon snapchats making me green with envy, thanks girls!) is that my eldest keeps saying he didn't realise Grace and Carol were famous. He doesn't get why their wedding is in the papers, so it must be that they are celebrities. After all, “it's just a wedding Mom, sure everyone can have one”. And there it is. From the mouth of babes. The simple, progressive truth of the Ireland he and his siblings are growing up in.  For him loving and marrying a same sex partner, holds no wonder. For me, I am privileged to have witnessed a democratic process of monumental proportions, afford families around the country the equal status they so desperately deserve.