Will you be attending the Tropical Pride Festival in Cairns from September 19th-21st?

Though we knew that this marriage would not be legally recognised (yet!) we felt that it was vitally important for us to publicly celebrate our relationship.

The wedding day was in the planning for over 12 months. When planning the day we made a point of calling it a Wedding rather than a holy union or commitment ceremony. We feel that the word Wedding put the day into a context that everyone would understand and know the meaning of. We also felt that as we were dealing with hetro vendors it would be easier for them to understand the concept of a wedding involving two girls rather than a holy union or commitment ceremony. In the early stages of planning we expected some homophobia, but we didn't encounter it at all. In fact some vendors were very excited about it being their first gay wedding.

We married at Chapel Hill in the Blue Mountains in the West of Sydney on 19th of June 1999. It was a lovely country style wedding with 35 people whom we love and care about and who love and care about us. We choose to wear Wedding dresses in bridal white and gold organza. As we didn't want to inflict “bridesmaid duty??? on any of our friends or family we had no adult attendants. However our young nieces were thrilled to be our flower girls.

They both wore dark purple dresses. It ended up being an all girl affair with our mothers walking us down the aisle and proudly giving us away.

One of our best memories was getting ready together. We stayed the night before at Chapel Hill in this gorgeous old cottage overlooking a lake. It was lovely to have a relaxing breakfast together before all our helpers arrived. We spent the morning with our nieces, mothers, and hairdresser and make-up artist. It was such fun getting all girlie as we don’t wear make-up everyday. As with all weddings there were some minor incidents. Just as the photographer was about to arrive Julia’s shoe caught on the hem of her dress and tore the stitching. Luckily for us the make-up artist was capable of sewing and stitched it back into place. As we were having photos done on the deck over the lake with our nieces, Mel gave her niece a hug, which left lipstick on the shoulder of her dress! There was no chance of getting that out at that stage. Luckily she had a huge bouquet of flowers to hide the stain. As the chapel, reception room and our cottage were all on the same property we walked to the ceremony. There are some classic shots of us walking through a cow paddock. Our nieces decided now would be a good time to make friends with some of the horses. After much convincing they changed their minds.

Straight after the wedding it felt different being married. We can’t quite explain it except to say that there had been a shift in consciousness. It was also important for us to have the same surname. We choose a new family name together and arranged to have it legally changed by deed poll.

Our 3rd wedding anniversary is quickly approaching. We're living in country Queensland in a home that we designed and built in 2000. Our family has grown by one during the last 6 months. We have a gorgeous dog named Molly. In the next few years we hoping to have one or two children to complete our family. We also hope to open our home as a Women’s B & B for our retirement years.

We’re still very much in love, committed to each other and spend most of our time together. Like any good relationship we’ve worked hard at keeping it together and yes there have been disagreements. We’ve both grown as individuals and as a couple.

As well has having to deal with every day life like paying the bills, going to work etc we’ve had to deal with the social isolation of living in the country and Julia losing her sight. At this time we’re starting a Lesbian & Gay social group in our small country town. After believing that we were the only lesbians or gays out here we’re surprised to have seven members. Not bad as we can’t exactly advertise in our local paper! Julia is looking into

re-training so that she can get back out into the workforce. During these difficult times we have learnt different ways of relating to and supporting each other.

We don’t believe that this strength or depth of commitment would have been achieved without our fantastic wedding day. If you'd like to know in more details about planning a lesbian wedding check out our website. © Mel and Julia 2002 http://www.angelfire.com/me/queerwedding/home.html

© Mel and Julia 2002