On our 4 year anniversary, on our drive to Alaska, I said let's go on a nature hike or
something.
We wanted to go moose spotting.
Moose spotting.
Which is a thing in Alaska.
Ladies, romance.
I got down on one knee.
And I said, “Please, will you marry me?
You and me forever.
Thoughts, questions, comments, concerns?”
And she said yes.
This will be our first gay wedding that we are both attending and participating in.
And then, hey it’s a gay religious ceremony, I mean it’s something I never thought
was even really an option when I realized that I was gay.
We met in college.
We were in the same small seminar class.
And I cracked a joke when we were going around introducing ourselves and Lizzie frowned at me.
So I was smitten from the jump.
I wish I could say it was love at first sight.
But…
Nice!
I like the sound of that.
And then the whole day, the person I want to see the most to like calm me down when
I’m feeling stressed is literally the one person I can’t see.
Why don’t we just wear like cones on our heads and we can’t see each other and we
just stand beside each other?
We have chosen to celebrate with a religious ceremony.
We are Episcopalian, and our faith is important to both of us.
I think we're breaking barriers by showing you can be a queer identifying person and
have a religious identity, that the two are not mutually exclusive.
We say in the church that marriage is an institution that should be entered into reverently and
deliberately for the purposes for which it was intended by God.
Check, check, and check.
My oldest friend, she basically said, “I don’t believe God intended for two same-sex
people to be together in this way.”
That is a human interpretation, so of course, there is going to be fallacy in that.
God is love and people will poison that.
Grace has a religious background and she kind of understands like this balance between faith,
and being a member of the LGBT community.
I had to come to my faith in a very unique and trying way.
I am a part of a faith group that, a lot of it, hates me for who I love.
So to reconcile that, and love the same God is a test of faith that I don’t want to do again.
But I had to do, so I have a really rock solid foundation.
Yeah, that I think.
Guys from over there, is that better?
I think people will be surprised that the ceremony is so religious, because the LGBT
community has been so ostracized and othered by Christians.
My stomach is doing flips right now.
This is actually relaxing me so much.
I was like a little jittery and now I’m not.
Before the ceremony, we'll have some time at the venue, and we're gonna do kind of a
no-looking gift exchange.
We’re going to use one of our good friends to exchange the gifts since we’re not seeing
each other that day just so that it will be a little something from each other.
Aww, it's her tattoo on a necklace!
She’s been writing me love letters since 2015 for me to read on our wedding day.
Alright.
This is so beautiful.
Thanks.
Oh, shoot.
Oh, gosh!
Alright…ugh.
Do you want me to bring it in the room?
Yeah, I guess we should put it in the room.
Hi guys, I’m a mess!
How’s everybody doing?
How are we feeling?
Our wedding day will be big.
We have a lot of people coming in from out of town; we’ve written a note to everyone
attending just to say thank you.
Just to to say thank you and a little bit about how we know each other and how they’ve
played a role in our relationship.
We have 20 people in our wedding party.
Some people would say having 20 bridesmaids is unconventional.
Some people would say having two women getting married is unconventional.
So I guess in that sense the whole thing is unconventional.
Dearly beloved in the name of God and the church, we've come together today with Elizabeth Capel
and Grace Baldridge, to witness the vows they make committing themselves to one
another according to the church.
I honor you in the name of God.
Now that Elizabeth and Grace have exchanged vows of love and fidelity in the presence
of God and the church, I now pronounce that they are married.
And bound to one another as long as they both shall live.
And everybody says, Amen.
You may now kiss.
I think when you're a baby gay kid you kind of experience questions of what my life would
look like and would it be fun and cool and exciting like how I would see in movies because
there wasn't that representation for me.
I just can’t believe we’re at my wedding and you’re all here with us!
So thank you!
I’m speechless, it doesn’t happen often.
Thank you so much for being here, we love you all.
Thank you.
So I do have these moments of looking around and feeling really proud of the life we created.
We did it.
We found each other, and I’m proud of that and I’m proud of the life we’ve built.
Give it up for the lovely couple!
Thanks for watching World Wide Wed.
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