My Three Weddings

I married Michael in a quickly cobbled-together, history-making ceremony on a drizzly spring morning in 2004. Dry-mouthed and giddy, we, along with hundreds of other couples crowding the foyer of Portland, Oregon’s Keller Auditorium, stood between a volunteer clergyman and a tiny cocktail table, exchanging vows we’d written the night before. I barely made it through the words, but Mike started crying the second he opened his mouth and had to have the minister read his vows to me.

How were two gay men legally married a full eleven years before the U.S. Supreme Court made it the law of the land? Our matrimonial adventure began when Roey Thorpe, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, asked commissioners, “What would happen if a same-sex couple applied for a marriage license in Multnomah County?” After seeking legal counsel, they discovered something surprising: nothing was stopping the county from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

We’d been following the groundbreaking story, but I was still surprised when Mike called me at work one afternoon, saying breathlessly, “We’ve got to get down to the County Building right now. They’re handing out marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.”

Rain tapped us on the shoulders as we joined hundreds of pairs circling the County Building. Despite the cries of protesters across the street, a feeling of celebration ricocheted through the air. Couples held hands, their laughter and mutual congratulations blanketing the atmosphere while someone handed out bouquets of wildflowers to the future brides and grooms.

My newly minted fiancé and I left with the precious piece of paper in our hands and thoughts of our incredibly rushed nuptials running around in our heads. Scared our newfound rights would disappear in a wisp of smoke, we spent that evening phoning family and friends we thought might be able to make the ceremony less than two days later.

We held a makeshift reception at our favorite Greek restaurant, and when the waitstaff found out what we were doing there, they showed our tiny wedding party to an empty banquet room. After settling us around a long table, our waiter congratulated Michael and me, handing us stacks of brown clay plates to break for good luck. The party culminated with the crash of dishware on the hardwood floor and cries of “Opa!” filling the cavernous room.

About a month later, a Multnomah County Circuit Court judge said our marriage was unconstitutional because the state Supreme Court and Oregon Legislature hadn’t weighed in on its legality. And when the county returned our sixty-dollar licensing fee, it felt like the final blow.

A little more than a decade later, Mike and I were married again. After celebrating the Supreme Court ruling that same-sex marriage was legal only a month before, I got a job as a social worker at a local children’s hospital. I’d been assured that he’d be included on my health insurance, but when I went to HR to fill out the paperwork, the head of the department cheerfully informed me that for Mike to be covered, he’d have to be my husband.

So, in another headlong rush toward connubial bliss, we threw together our second wedding, even though we’d been planning a big formal ceremony for a nebulous future date. And as we toasted our union, shoving bites of cake into each other’s mouths on that early August afternoon in 2015, my husband and I looked into each other’s eyes and treasured a right we’d never thought would be ours.

For the rest of our lives together, I never tired of calling Mike my husband, giving him the title at every opportunity, and when he died suddenly of a massive stroke after we’d retired to Mexico four years later, I treasured the fact that I’d been Michael’s legal spouse even more, turning the fact over and over in my head, marveling at its power to make him more mine than he would’ve been otherwise.

Hopelessly lost, I returned to the U.S., where I lived with family and friends until I felt ready to be on my own. Three years passed, and with some bravery and residual guilt, I built a new life.

Then I met Marty, an impossibly sweet, blue-eyed man who made me happy in ways I never thought I could be again. I moved across the country to be with him, and after a year together, proposed on Christmas morning.

As Marty and I planned a spring wedding, we heard rumblings that the Supreme Court was going after same-sex marriage just as it had abortion rights, and we wondered if we should rush to a justice of the peace while our marriage would still be legal. Riddled with a mix of joy and anxiety, we plowed ahead.

Our wedding took place on one of the most beautiful days Omaha, Nebraska, has ever seen, and unlike my first two weddings, it came with all the traditional trappings. Vibrating with happiness we could barely contain, Marty and I were married in a church, standing before a minister. Held in the embrace of our family and friends, we were surrounded by the quiet notes of our favorite music and the scent of color-splashed bouquets. When we sliced into a white cake, all my wedding dreams came true.

These days, I look back on my three weddings with mixed emotions. I feel joy because of the richness loving two men brought into my life, and gratitude because I know that if the Supreme Court had agreed to revisit Obergefell v. Hodges and it had been overturned, many same-sex couples would’ve been robbed of the precious opportunity I’ve had: the chance to make a legally binding commitment to each other in front of those they love.

Charles Davis is a freelance essayist who has written for several academic publications and  The Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Davis also writes a blog on navigating loss and building a new life. He was a semifinalist for the 2023 Mason Jar Press 1729 Book Prize in Prose.