The best day of our lives.

This past Saturday my partner, Ranger, and myself had the best day of our lives.

You see this past Saturday was our wedding day. Before you ask, no, we aren't legally married anywhere. We did, on that day, sign legal documents setting up a domestic partnership agreement, medical and financial powers of attorney, and wills, but there was no marriage license as gay marriage isn't recognized in the state of Tennessee. On that day though the lack of legal recognition didn't matter.

We had the ceremony at the bar I used to work at. We would have loved to have had the ceremony at the church we attend, but the United Methodist Church strictly forbids conducting ceremonies celebrating the love of two men or two women on church property. On that day however, the lack of recognition from our church didn't matter.

You see on that day our relationship, our love, was recognized by our families and our friends. Even though we couldn't have the ceremony at our church several members of our church took part in the ceremony. That day we stood together on the stage in a bar, a straight bar, in a run down part of town, and we publicly proclaimed our love and commitment for each other in front of the people who mean the most to us.

The crowd completely filled the room and as we stood there looking out at a group of people who were gay, straight, transgendered, black, white, Asian, young, old, wealthy, poor, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, and who were willing not to embrace just us, but everyone else in the room with us. It was a beautiful and remarkable sight to see that much love in one space. As the ceremony progressed we sang together, laughed together, cried together. All of us, in a matter of a few minutes, became a community. My partner and myself watched total strangers become friends, we saw people with almost nothing in common bond with each other over a piece of cake and a cup of punch. We saw the love we feel for each other reflected in our friends and families. What we saw, in this simple place, filled with ordinary people, was nothing short of a miracle.

We appreciate so much all of the people who were there, all of the people who helped make the ceremony possible, and all of the people who couldn't attend but sent their well wishes to us. We thought that this would be a great day, but nothing could have prepared us for how wonderful it really was. Now we are challenged to take what happened that day and keep it going, to share with others, every day, the love and community and support for each other that we saw that very special day. If you were part of our wedding day then we challenge you to do the same, that day was so incredibly special, but we should do all that we can to turn it into something ordinary. We should try and make every day just like that one, if we can share love with the people in our lives on a daily basis like everyone there did that day we won't have to worry about working to legalizing gay marriage, it will happen on its own.

Thank you so much to everyone who made our wedding day the best day of our lives.