BYO Rainbow.

I was always unsure how I felt about getting married. I always loved the idea of being in love. Together spent. Future dreaming. But didn’t understand the concept of ‘holy matrimony’ and the religious connotations that came with it.  I’m not sure what flicked. Switched. Into trance-lusting over all things lace, sparkly and new. To imagining with nervous delight the details of one potential love day.

While I still found the concept of engagement. waiting. splurging. tradition. name forsaking. performing. to be somewhat out-of-body-nervously-bizarre. It was only time abandonment that comforted my own reality of meaning.

It has been (just over) one year since that love day and I still can’t express what marriage entirely means to me. Or explain what is 'different' from a long-term committed relationship. Truth is I don't think there is much.

Difference.

I only know a fuzzy change of state that I can't deny would come with other momentous relationship milestones like the birth of one's children (probably more so).

At the risk of sounding derisive, I am somewhat comforted that I have ticked a 'societal box'. I may not have no white pickets or any idea when or if I want them, but the marriage is 'in the bag'.

Unromantic?

It is a great big love tick! I loved organising and filling that tick with respect and 'together forever' happiness and will continue to do so. But there is also a sense of relief. I found him. Call off the search. Take back those wedding magazines. No need for you to wonder. When? [and for now I will continue to field your questions of first and second borns with my own travel and career daydreaming].

Comfort at being a 'Mrs' is now seated nicely with me. The laboured 'cringe factor' at the title is slowly diminishing. I have found my wedded niche with it.

This ease of my own Mrs Mind has coincided with increased fervour in the debate over same-sex marriage in Australia. And has in turn increased my bewilderment that a law, the Marriage Act, can prevent two loves from professing how they feel to one another. In marriage.

Of late I have heard opponents of same-sex marriage spinning everything from quoting the Bible to beavering through divorce statistics and their own polished notions of the ‘sanctity’ of marriage. Not one of these many lines of deduction hold any weight with me.

Apparently the ‘good book’ tells us that marriage is between a man and a woman. So? Doesn’t it also tell us that we should abstain from sex until ‘death do us part’ vowels are exchanged? Judging on the unwedded birth rate, I think it is safe to say that many of us are forgoing that ‘tradition’ in favour of getting to know each other horizontal. Really.

Each to their own faith, but is marriage really that connected to religious conventions and institutions anymore? The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that nearly seven in every 10 marriages (69.2 per cent) in 2010 were performed by a marriage celebrant rather than a minister of religion. So why aren’t proponents of the Bible ‘man and a woman’ argument extending their calls to ban non-religious matrimony? Do they believe that the non-religious among us should only be entitled to express their love for one another through civil unions? Their argument simply does not add up.  

Marriage should be a choice between two people. A commitment which has your own value and meaning attached. As individual as your pairing. It should be a wonderous thing. Something that only impacts on others by way of excitable happiness and glee. Everyone should be entitled to make the choice to connect with their love in their way, and if that is through ‘I do’s’, then sexual preference should pay no part.

I cannot wait to attend my first same-sex wedding. To feel that rush of nervously sure love that fills the room; and well up at the joy of it all. Just like any other wedding. To prohibit anyone from making the decision to marry is social exclusion. The time for marriage equality is now. 

[Show your support for marriage equality in Australia by visiting Equal Love, Australian Marriage Equality, and GetUp! and by writing to your local MP and calling for them to not only support a Federal Government conscience vote on same-sex marriage, but to commit to voting for changes to the Marriage Act in ending marriage exclusion]. 

                        

[So clearly I did fall in love with weddings...and am so lucky that I had the amazing talents of Sarah Williams on board to capture beautiful memories for me. Sarah's work is gaining increased blog exposure from the likes of Studio Home, the apple isle, PanelPop and Studio White. She truly is some kind of magic xmuse&skipx]