We are married!
The last couple of days have been incredibly busy, so I'll do a quick recap. I spent Thursday with my friend Elizabeth. We did some serious dress shopping, and finally found a gorgeous dress on sale at a shop in the Eaton Center. We had several drinks on Thursday night, and I stayed with Elizabeth in the Kensington Market area.
Yesterday morning, Elizabeth and I got up early and I got my hair cut. We bought some beautiful tulips and other flowers and rushed back to prepare for the wedding. We made several posies for various friends and witnesses and I made two bunches of tulips for Heather and myself. Finally everything was ready and Elizabeth and I went out to the street and tried to hail a cab, which took ages. It was snowing, and at times the wind was coming in massive gusts that nearly blew us over. It was beautiful, though--in a very Canadian way. Finally we found a cab and arrived at City Hall with only a few minutes to spare.
As soon as I got out of the elevator, I saw Heather and started apologising for being late. She took me aside and said that she needed to talk to me. "Okay," she said. "My mother is here, and my uncle and grandfather." Without telling us, they had all flown up for the wedding. It was very exciting, but also nerve-wracking, because I've never met any of them before.
"Also," Heather said, "there's a photographer here. He works for Bloomberg. He wants to take pictures of our wedding." This was all very confusing, so I just agreed to everything. I found out later that Norm, the photographer, wanted to take photos to supply to Bloomberg, which is apparently a global financial news service (hardly the sort of news that interests me). Norm needed the pictures because same-sex marriage is about to become legal in the UK, and it will probably be the subject of many news stories. Norm's pictures of us may accompany articles in any of 900 newspapers worldwide. He took heaps of photos, and he'll provide us with a CD of them. So, serendipitously, we had a professional photographer for free.
The ceremony was brief and not as terrifying as it might have been. The celebrant was lovely, and everything went very smoothly. I found saying things like "to have and to hold" quite surreal. Was I really saying it? Was I really getting married? As Heather said the vow "for richer, for poorer" to me, we laughed simultaneously because we were both thinking it will definitely be the latter.
After the ceremony, we went downstairs to Nathan Phillips Sqaure and had more photos taken outside City Hall and beside the ice-skating rink. Afterwards, we went out to lunch with Heather's mum, uncle, and grandfather, my friend Elizabeth, and Fred, a friend of Heather's who had flown up from Florida for the ceremony. In the evening, we went back to Heather's cousin Rebecca's place for a party. Rebecca had decorated and catered beautifully, and everything was lovely. It was a lovely, exhausting, wonderful day.
