Legally a couple after 13 years!

The full set of pictures from our civil partnership registration ceremony is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/80025068@N00/sets/72157594539576000/

I've finally got around to uploading some of the photos from our special day - already almost 2 weeks ago! It turned out to be a really lovely occasion, even though it was so low-key. We'd been meaning to become legal civil partners since the law changed in December 2005, allowing lesbian and gay couples to register as partners throughout the UK. But first ttc, and then pregnancy got in the way of actually making it happen. Plus we couldn't agree on how we wanted to celebrate the day, so we just never really got the ball rolling. However, with Pip's arrival imminent, it made a lot of sense to do it now for legal reasons (as Karen can now apply for parental responsibility for Pip - once he/she is born - without having to go through the courts; it's just a rubber-stamping paper exercise), and then to have a separate celebration party some time in the summer, which we will combine with a non-religious naming ceremony for Pip.

So, all in all, it was a very quiet affair, with my youngest sister Fran and Karen's cousin Pat as witnesses, and my mother Diana plus our friends Mick and Mal as the only other guests. Our aim was to keep it very small so that no-one else could feel left out! Not sure if we've achieved that, but hey, where do you draw the line otherwise? With a CP ceremony, there is no legal requirement to exchange vows of any kind; you just have to declare that you are legally free to enter the partnership, and then sign a bit of paper. Not very romantic or memorable. However, the local registry office gave us a choice of 3 ceremonies/sets of vows that we could use, into which we could then incorporate readings and music that we chose. Karen and I entered to Ella Fitzgerald's "You Do Something To Me" (which started Karen off on the tears front), and once the registrar had done the welcome (she was great, and really made the simple ceremony feel like it had a lot of meaning), my mother did this reading by Anne Morrow Linbergh, from A Gift From The Sea:

A good relationship has a pattern like a dance, and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay, and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart’s. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back – it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it. The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined.*

My mother always cries at weddings, so she did amazingly well to keep her voice from wobbling almost until the very end of the reading! Karen and I then exchanged vows and rings; Karen went first and got really emotional so she was both crying, laughing and speaking in a really high-pitched voice which was rather funny. I was able to say mine without any problem, although I had the biggest grin on my face (my mother said afterwards how she'd never seen me look so happy). And then it was my turn to do a reading; the Atlas poem by U.A. Fanthorpe which for me expresses so perfectly how I show my love for Karen on a day-to-day basis, even though I'm pretty rubbish at big romantic gestures (see post on 19 Jan - I couldn't work out how to link directly to it). And yes, my voice did start catching while I was reading it...

Once we'd signed the register, the ceremony was concluded, and we left to the sound of Madeleine Peyroux's "Dance Me To The End Of Love", heading out to the (rather chilly) garden for photos, including rice-throwing opportunities. I ended up with a lot of rice down my cleavage! There are some good pictures of this bit in the set, including some of my flowers, a lovely spring bouquet which had unexpectedly arrived that morning, from my sister Christabel who's currently living in Australia.

We headed back home for a celebratory glass of pink champagne, then it was off to a local restaurant for a leisurely lunch, lubricated by plenty of alcohol. I even allowed myself some yummy stinky soft cheese, accompanied by a glass of Rioja (working on the basis that the baby's pretty much fully developed now) and we also had some truly delicious dessert wine from the Veneto, that was unlike any other wine I've ever tasted. And then back home for wedding cake, even though we were all full already. Everyone off to their various destinations by early evening; we were completely exhausted (and I was starting to feel hungover from my 2 glasses of wine, having been so unaccustomed to alcohol) and we were in bed, fast asleep, by 8.45pm! It was a lovely day, and probably all the more memorable for having been such an intimate affair, uncomplicated by the stresses of organising a big "do".

* the funniest thing about this is that even though Karen chose this reading, from a book of wedding/partnership celebrations written by the Humanist Society, I discovered a few days ago that her interpretation/memory of it was that it was about the weaving of a carpet, not a dance!