They do: Jennifer Lloyd, left, will marry partner Glenda Lloyd on Saturday.
This Saturday, I’m going to stand up before my family and friends and declare my faithful love and commitment to the woman I have loved and shared my life with for more than 10 years.
It’s not an uncommon event; most weekends you’ll find happy couples littered around Canberra doing exactly the same thing.
This weekend is a little special, however.
Jennifer and I are both women, and this Saturday is the first day that same-sex couples can legally wed on Australian soil.
Jennifer and I have shared the kinds of triumphs and trials that many blended families go through.
We bought a house and a bigger car to accommodate our families, celebrated birthdays and Christmases, argued over whose turn it was to do the dishes, and managed to survive both the teen years of our four children and Jennifer’s brush with cancer.
Over the years we’ve helped friends celebrate their marriages, but always with a sad, unspoken moment where we share a glance and squeeze hands, wishing that it was us.
Glenda Lloyd and her partner Jennifer Lloyd will marry this Saturday at the Rose Gardens.
We’ve been carefully watching the progress of the ACT’s Marriage Equality Bill through the ACT Legislative Assembly and the High Court with both optimism and fear.
We wanted to celebrate, to plan, to prepare, but also tried to guard our hearts against the potential our plans could come to nothing.
I was at work on Tuesday afternoon when the call came from my mother that the High Court had reserved judgment and we could go ahead with our plans to marry this Saturday.
My spontaneous whoop of joy in my open-plan office brought my colleagues to their feet, and they were genuine in their congratulations.
We’ve received dozens of positive comments, emails, texts and calls from our families and friends, and also from strangers.
A colleague in Adelaide who I met only once sent me an email of support. A woman walking through the public gardens we were scoping as a venue stopped to smile and congratulate us.
We know that next week’s decision could bring a reversal, and our marriage may be declared invalid. We hope that this won’t be the case, and we will have to deal with that if it comes.
For now, I’m enjoying my moment to be first a blushing bride, and then afterwards, to gaze into the smiling eyes of my wife.
Photo: Melissa Adams
Author: Glenda Lloyd
Publication: The Sydney Morning herald
Date: 6 December 2013
Veiw original article here