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I Went on an Australian Gay Marriage Marathon

Same sex marriage became legal in Australia's capital over the weekend. We celebrated by going to eight gay weddings in a row.

It was always going to be a media orgy. By the time I arrived at 6.30am, there were several cameramen on the lawn and a great tangle of production cables in the suburban Canberra backyard. An ageing Channel 9 camera operator quickly established a pecking order by addressing the group with a firm ultimatum. “If any of you get in my shot, I will kill you,” he said. It wasn’t the most romantic thing ever said at a wedding, but then again, this was national television.

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The brides arrived 30 minutes later. They were young lovers from the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) who’d met online in early 2012. Hayley proposed to Sam in October, just one month before the territory passed its controversial same sex marriage act. They had long been hoping for marriage equality but hadn’t expected it quite so early on a Saturday morning. They laughed when I asked why they rushed to sign up for Australia’s first ever day of legal same sex marriage. “I guess we’re a bit competitive,” they said.

Sam and Hayley’s backyard gig felt like the set of a Woman’s Day photo shoot. The nervous brides had matching white suits and cropped haircuts with blonde streaks, and Sam’s adorable young son wore squeaky new shoes and held on nervously to a pastel ring box. Everybody cheered as their wedding celebrant, Judy, began the ceremony with a pointed sentence: “I'm about to make a statement that I've been waiting a very long time to make and you've been waiting a very long time to hear”.

I felt a stab of sentimentalism as Sam and Hayley were pronounced “wife and wife” just 10 minutes later, despite all the cameras obscuring the morning’s money shot—a big lesbian pash. Yet it also felt like it wasn’t really happening. With government action against the ACT’s new marriage act looming, everybody at the ceremony was aware of the union’s legally uncertain future. “We decided not to have a big wedding because if [the law] gets overturned, then we’d have been pretty gutted,” said Sam.

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Michelle and Annabel’s wedding began less than 30 minutes later. This early-40s duo wore matching red lipstick and shared a creative life of music, art, and theatre, as well as a bunch of cats and dogs. “We became friends 16 years ago when we were working at The Sydney Theatre Company. I’ve always held a torch for her,” said Michelle. They almost looked too cool to care about a concept like marriage, but it turned out they’d been engaged for six years and had put down the deposit for a ceremony way back in 2010.

My favourite part of Michelle and Annabel’s wedding was Michelle’s subtle rockabilly dress, and when the newly married couple had to awkwardly re-enact their kiss for a tragic early morning TV show. (They later admitted they were desperately trying not to smear lipstick all over each other’s faces.) I admired their gusto and determination. “Whatever happens [with the Federal challenge] we’re getting married today, and in our minds that’s how it will stay,” said Michelle.

There was no rest between ceremonies. My third wedding—Darlene and Liz—was held in one of Canberra’s newest venues: The Margaret Whitlam Pavilion. The venue’s symbolism was palpable. It was a sunny morning, and this white beacon of modern architecture looked incredible atop a landscape previously devastated by bushfires. Several guests wore rainbow ties, vests, and fairy costumes, while another rocked up in a pastel purple suit with matching coloured earrings. He looked like a fabulous Willy Wonka.

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Darlene and Liz’s vows were genuinely funny and lighthearted. This was great, because I was starting to get tired of marriage vows. Once the novelty wore off, gay marriage became just like any other hammy heterosexual wedding. “It’s the most natural, normal, and, in many respects, unexceptional thing,” said the ACT’s Attorney-General, Simon Corbell, shortly after Darlene and Liz signed their marriage certificate for a corral of ABC journalists and news crews.

My fourth wedding was for a more discreet duo from a rural Victorian town. Gabi and Erin were the most media shy of all the weekend’s couples. They shrugged off a SBS cameraman and made suspicious eyes at an ageing newsboy, before resolutely taking their place in front of a small waterfall. Their ceremony was short and serious, except for a few giggles in the bits about being richer or poorer. Maybe it was just the lack of media, but their vows felt intensely personal and a little defiant.

Gabi gave me a mistrustful look when I later approached them for an interview. They told me they didn’t want their seven-year relationship turned into a spectacle for the public. It felt like they expected to be judged. This was alluded to when I asked what it felt like to be legally wed. “Acceptance,” said Gabi. This single word answer was destabilising and made me speechless at the thought of a society so intent on creating barricades.

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Gabi and Erin left shortly after their vows for a beer at the pub. They would later travel the 320km home to their farm and horses in Victoria, where their new marriage wouldn’t be legally recognised. They said marriage equality was an exhausting experience, and I definitely felt an element of their weariness. I ungraciously raced back to my dodgy highway hotel, where I slept heavily in preparation for the second day of my gay marriage marathon.

I was looking forward to Chris and Brendon’s Sunday morning wedding. Man to man marriages were in the minority that weekend, although a few of the ACT’s male couples did grab headlines with midnight ceremonies and cocktail parties. Chris and Brendon’s ceremony was significantly lower key. They’d already spent $15,000 on a civil union—complete with ice carvings—in March and now just wanted to turn this into a legal marriage.

I wondered about the subtle differences between a civil union and marriage throughout the two men’s ceremony. Brendon told me afterwards that being legally wed just felt different. “I’m married now. He’s my husband, not just my legal partner,” he said. Both men were full of laughter all morning, but they also said they felt “heavily discriminated” against by the Federal Government. Brendon said the whole High Court legal challenge was bigoted and red-necked, as well as a waste of taxpayer money.

My sixth wedding was set under a phallic Canberrian monument in a leafy public park. Bernardette and Amanda reminded me of my friends back home in Sydney. They had a laser-cut engagement ring from MoMA in New York, and one of their guests brought a little black dog with a sparkling bowtie around its neck. The air was celebratory and filled with the smell of cooking food destined for the guests’ post-ceremony picnic. It felt like the sort of wedding that I could imagine myself one day having.

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Bernardette and Amanda’s vows were sassy. “I wish I was an octopus, so I would have eight hands with which to touch her butt,” said Bernardette, as she held Amanda’s hands and exchanged rings. It didn’t feel like a particularly politically-motivated event, but the brides later told me they wanted to send a clear message to young gay kids. “We want them to know that there’s nothing wrong with them,” said Bernadette. They said they’d call each other wife even if the law got revoked, but would also consider going somewhere “more progressive”, such as New York, to wed all over again.

I was finally on the home stretch. Ellie and Emily’s early afternoon wedding was a small family affair. It was peaceful and relaxed, and I felt comfortable enough to collapse on a bench and let everything waft over me. This mid-20s couple were already legal partners but—like Brendon and Chris—said that wasn’t enough. Their crumpled satin dresses were the same $200 eBay gowns from their 2009 civil union. They were the only couple that wore traditional wedding outfits that weekend.

After they cut a homemade fruitcake (with super thick icing) Ellie and Emily showed me a photo album from their civil union. They had different reasons for getting married. Emily wanted legal protection and international recognition, whereas Ellie was passionate about the human rights and underlying symbolism of legal same-sex marriage. They were both articulate when I asked if it might simply be more progressive to abolish marriage altogether. “Marriage is the same across all countries,” said Emily.

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My eighth and final marriage was held in a suburban auditorium opposite a dingy RSL that played Christmas music to its pokie-playing patrons. By this stage, I’d made my own silent vows to never attend another wedding ever again. Luckily, Veronica and Krishna’s ceremony wasn’t so much a wedding, as much as a fully-fledged stage production. The crowd was ushered into the expansive theatre by the sounds of live African drummers, and there was a Wizard of Oz-themed marzipan fruitcake for after the ceremony.

One word was repeated several times throughout Veronica and Krishna’s vows: “promise”. I wondered what this word meant to this spunky middle-aged couple. They had been together for sixteen years, shared a family of teenage children, and seemed completely content with each other. The whole thing was inexplicable, mysterious, and totally sappy, but I still became secretly teary for the first time all weekend as the huge crowd started singing “Love is in the Air” to the new couple. It felt satisfying.

Update: The ACT's same sex marriage act was struck down on 12 December, essentially annulling the above marriages.

Follow Emilia on Twitter: @EmiliaKate 

For more on same sex marriage:

Street Battles Rage In France Over Gay Marriage 

Don’t Celebrate The Gay Marriage Victory With A Wedding OF Your Own

We Took An Anti Gay Marriage Priest To See A Gay Married Priest