Married! again.

Yup, we’ve traded in our snow globe collection for commitment ceremonies. Well, I might keep that really fancy snow globe of Chicago as the city is, in fact, my kind of town, and the snow globe was a gift. Our anthology of monogamous declarations now includes: our first wedding ceremony on 3 March 2001, our Domestic Partnership in New Jersey on 25 October 2006, our Civil Union in New Jersey on 19 March 2007, and now our federally recognised marriage in Canada on 1 August 2009 in Southampton, Ontario. We are now Mrs. and Mrs. after 15 years of living in sin and nearly 6 years parenting our bastard children.

I could go off on a tirade about how superior Canada is to the United States. According to the HRC, the most recent tally of inequality comes to 1,138 rights and protections afforded married couples in the U.S. from which same sex couples are excluded. But hey. I can’t let a little snag like homeland oppression taint our marital bliss upon becoming Wife and Wife in the land of the Canucks. We’ll save our fist shaking and angry chanting for the National LGBT Equality March on Washington October 10-11. Jeepers, I love a catchy, angry chant. Every other day can be thumbing-my-nose-at-the-U.S.-day. For now, please join us in a joyful jig in honour of another envelope pushed.

To the friends and family members who were irritated because they were not invited, it was all very spur of the moment. During the first 6 hour leg of our drive to Niagara Falls, it dawned on me that we were about to cross the border into the Land of Equal Rights.

“Hey Gabriella!” “mmm” “Want to get married?” “Sure.” Ain’t love grand?

I applied online for the license when we arrived, and we picked it up at City Hall the following morning. While we were trolling the web for wedding venues and officiates that first night, our host in Southampton managed to find someone to conduct our wedding the next day at her summer cottage and our final destination. Sorted. Compared to the year of planning for our first wedding, this was a doddle. Of course, we had loads of help. Thank you to:

Carolyn who officiated from the heart and with very short notice.

Helen who donated the flowers from her garden-the ones that were closest to Joe’s house for our flower/flag bouquets.

Paul for filming the blessed occasion. Hey, Paul! When do we get a peek?

Ian for capturing every moment of the ceremony on camera and for the fastest digital image-to-thoughtfully-framed-gift in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

Evan for reminding us that every wedding no matter how small or casual is a beautiful gift of love for all to share. Thank you, Evan, you big blubbering hunk of man.

Ian & Evan

Meredith Grant whose music was the perfect accompaniment for the day. Do you do Bar Mitzvahs? Let’s discuss your availability in November 2016.

Alison and Mark for being the most amazing wedding co-ordinators evah! Food, drink, cake, drink, champagne, drink (champagne requires its own category) sparklers and rice, and everything else they did that I can't recall...because of all the drink.

Levi and Elise for rice hurling.*
*Mark disposed of the rice so that no bird was able to consume the rice that might have expanded in its stomach and killed it.

Asher and Alexandra who occupied themselves once they realized that this wedding business was boring.

Gabriella for agreeing to be mine....again.

If you sadly missed any our past commitment ceremonies, fear not. You can always send well wishes and/or wedding gifts to us no matter what Miss Manners says gifting within the year. Address all cards and packages to ... on second thought, I should probably not give out my home address. Maybe I’ll give out my sister Rachel’s address. I imagine for every serving platter or champagne flute we receive for our wedding, she may get a letter recognizing her invaluable contribution to this blog. Of course, she’d be rather displeased if I published her address, so if you insist...we will happily receive tokens of your love at:

Deborah Goldstein, PO Box 451, South Orange, NJ 07079

I promise I give good card should you include your return address. I only ask that if you don’t have anything nice to send, please send nothing at all. You may send naked photos, knickers and the like, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to reciprocate should I wish to maintain my Domestic Partnership, Civil Union, Marriage status as old-fashioned as that may seem.

THANK YOU CANADA!