GayWeddings.com

This wedding story is a single installment comprised of Heidi & Brittany's serial contributions to our blog, Gay Wedding Fodder. Photo courtesy of the brides' family.

Meet Heidi & Brittany

Heidi: Brittany and I met in 2002, shortly after I graduated from college and just before I moved to St. George, Utah. I worked a part time job in a gas station that was attached to a Domino’s Pizza, where Brittany was a manager. We both worked in the same place and didn’t really talk to each other for a few months, but she was so cute and tomboyish and I knew I wanted to get to know her.
One day I was listening to Avril Lavigne. After the CD ended, Brittany came in to open the Domino’s and put on the same CD. So, as sneakily as I could, I restarted my CD, and put it ahead a song so it didn’t seem like I had just decided to listen to it because she was, and I hoped she would talk to me. As she was walking around she leaned over the counter (in her cute uniform).

Brittany: Yeah, my uniform covered with pizza sauce and cornmeal.

Heidi: It was cute. Anyway, she asked if I was listening to the same CD as her. And the conversation just flowed from there. She came over after she was off work and we talked for a few hours. She took me out to her car and showed me her sound system. I felt shy and weak and excited all at the same time, and I knew we would become fast friends.

Brittany: Yeah, it was the sound system that got you, wasn’t it?

Heidi: Maybe it was! Anyway, a few weeks went by and I moved down and in with my grandma and we started spending every free moment we had together.

Brittany: And by free, she means even that time we should have been asleep.

Heidi: Yeah, really. We decided to become roommates, so she could get out of her parent’s house and I could get out of my Grandma’s house. Some nights, we would drive around looking at houses or scoping out apartments, and talking as if we had known each other forever, until 4 in the morning.

Brittany: But we were just friends, of course. Neither of us dared to talk about anything else, because we were both Mormon and it was “wrong” to admit that the feelings we were having were much more.

Heidi: When Christmas rolled around I went home for a few nights, back up to Northern Utah. I was miserable. It was basically the first few nights we had spent apart for a month or so, and all I could do was think about her. I called so much that my phone’s battery went dead, and my family was mad at me for not spending more time with them. While I was gone, Brittany wrote a poem for me that she read over the phone, about how I was her best friend and she loved me.

Brittany: As a friend, of course.

Heidi: But I felt much more when she read that to me. I think that’s when I started to really realize and admit to myself what I was feeling. When I got back I asked her to spend the night at my house. We slept in the same twin bed, snuggled, but nothing happened. The next night, the same thing. Finally, on the third night, December 28, 2002, I was fed up with waiting, and leaned in to kiss her.

Brittany: Because even though all the signs were there, I was too chicken to kiss her! And trust me I’ll never live that down!

Heidi: But at least somebody was daring, or we’d still be miserable! So, we moved into an apartment together in St. George a few days later, and everything felt right for the first time in my life. Both of us had been with men before, but like good Mormons, we had never slept with anyone. We saved ourselves for the right person. And we had finally found that right person. But, overcoming those feelings that we were doing something wrong was a long and arduous process. We hid what we had from everyone around us, and even split up for some time and dated men again trying to escape from what we knew we were.

Brittany: Well, Heidi dated a few men. I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

Heidi: Yeah, it was pretty much me that was having a hard time with all the guilt.

Brittany: It’s just lucky that we decided to move to Salt Lake. We were tired of being in St. George, and one day Heidi said “Let’s just move to Salt Lake.” So I started looking for jobs and she transferred with Dillard’s and we moved. For the first few months we were still split up, but I was being patient because I knew she just had to work some things out and that she’d come around.

Heidi: And I finally did.

Brittany: So then, I proposed that September, on the 26th. Let’s see, that was 2004, right? I got our good friend Lina to decorate our whole apartment with candles and roses and play our song on repeat while we went to dinner. But Heidi knew something was going on because we were coming back and we saw Lina driving my car!

Heidi: Yeah, that was funny. But I just figured you were doing something special for my birthday.

Brittany: I was so nervous. Lina and everyone kept telling me not to worry about it, that Heidi would say yes of course, but I was still afraid I’d make a fool of myself.

Heidi: You shouldn’t have been nervous.

Brittany: I was, right up until you said yes.

Heidi: But we still weren’t out to our parents. That came about a month or so later. We can talk more about that later.

Brittany: So, now, we’ve been together almost four years.

Heidi: In December.

Brittany: And we own a home together and we have a cat.

Heidi: And we’re getting married! September 26, 2007 in Canada or Massachusetts.

Brittany: But we’re going to have a ceremony and send off here in Utah for our friends and family. We’re still trying to decide where we’re going to have it and all of that.

Heidi: But we definitely can’t back out now…I bought a DRESS!

Brittany: I never would.

Heidi: Neither would I.

 

On Coming Out As A Bride

Heidi: Coming out of the closet was an interesting process, but I won’t bore you with the details of my coming out…you’ve all been through it.
But when you decide to get married, it’s a completely different experience. For example, I came out to my Mom and she says “I love you more now than I did before.”
Then, I tell her we’re getting married in a little over a year and she says: “A lot can change in a year.” What does that mean?

Brittany: And then there’s my mom…it was a lot better telling her we’re getting married than telling her I’m gay.
When I came out to her there was a lot of yelling and name calling and then she hung up.
I told her we were getting married and she wasn’t thrilled or anything, but she did offer to help.

Heidi: Then there are the other interesting responses, such as my oldest, very Mormon sister: “Oh, that will be fun” in the most un-excited tone she can muster. Or my next oldest, very hippy sister: “We’ll see what’s going on around then.” And I’m expecting all these responses like “I’m so happy for you and I’ll move the moon to be there!”
I wonder if I would get those responses if Brittany were a man?

Brittany: Yeah, you probably would. It seems like people don’t consider this as real as a straight marriage.
But we’ve also gotten some great responses. Like my Dad and step mom. They were supportive when I came out, but even more supportive when I told them we were getting married. More from my step mom than my dad. But he doesn’t really ever show emotion.

Heidi: I’ve had some great responses too. My two younger sisters are extremely excited. My dad, as ever the best man in my life, started suggesting places we might have the ceremony, offering to take all the pictures and run the music through his iPod (which will save us a pretty penny…thanks Dad!). My half-brother, who’s in Iraq right now and has a wife and five kids (three of which I’ve never met), says he’ll be there…of course, through e-mail I can’t hear his tone, but I’ll assume he’s excited for us.
I know I shouldn’t dwell on those not-so-stellar responses when I have great people that are enthusiastic…but I just don’t get it. I thought for sure my hippy sister in particular would make it a priority to be there for me, just like Brittany and I bought plane tickets and flew to Washington State a year ago to be at her wedding. What’s the difference?

Brittany: I guess that both coming out and announcing a serious commitment are defining moments. You learn who really cares about you and learn a lot about yourself.

Heidi: But I’d say that telling people you’re making a commitment to someone makes it more real, and then you see their true colors. I mean, once we get married, there’s no going back to the person they all hoped we would be.
I’ve found that I’ve grown up a lot as a person. When I came out to people there was a lot of crying and stuff on my part. I felt like I was letting people down a little bit. But I’ve come to a place in my life where I know who I am and what I want and what makes me happy. So while some responses may hurt, like my hippy sister’s response, others, like my mom and Mormon sister, and I’m sure my other Mormon family members when I tell them, just roll off my back and I move on without thinking too much about them. If they show up, great! If not, I won’t be as hurt as I might have been before.

Brittany: I’m excited to see who will be there. Because like I said, you learn who cares about you when you come out. But I think we’ll learn who really loves us and who we can truly rely on by who shows up at our wedding.

Heidi: As if coming out once wasn’t enough!

 

A Decision To Elope

Says Heidi 

We are going to elope.
We spent this past weekend looking at prices, bickering a little, stressing a lot, and joking about eloping.
But we really are going to do it.
It started on Wednesday when we drove up to Midway, Utah to look at a group campsite called the Chalet at Wasatch Mountain State Park.

It was beautiful and we were excited about it, thinking we had finally found the place where we wanted the whole thing to go down. But then we started talking about renting chairs, and tables, and a tent. And what about linens and all these other minute details? Decorations, and food, and wine vs. beer and cider and pies and all of this other stuff.
They don’t really matter.
What matters is us. That we can go and do the real thing. That our marriage will be real somewhere.
And then we can think about partying afterwards.

You may remember that our plan was to have a commitment ceremony/send off, then honeymoon and do the real thing in Canada afterwards. Almost an entire year from now. The beauty of eloping is that we don’t have to worry about colors, or lines, or getting someone to officiate, or writing up a ceremony or any of that. We can stop saving and worrying and planning for what really amounts to a show.
We can just be married.
I can still wear my dress. :)
And that’s all we need.

 

Why this feels so right!

Says Heidi:

So, we decided to jump in, forget the big show, and just get married. It’s 9 days away and counting now.
We got our tickets, told our parents (my dad will be there along with two of my sisters!), and booked a car rental. And things just continued to fall into place from there.

We found a marriage commissioner, Anne Moore, who is going to perform our ceremony at her home, facing the park and the ocean, in Vancouver.
My dress has been fitted, Brittany’s suit has been bought and prepared, the rings have been bought and sized, I found shoes and jewelry for next to nothing, and we both have our old, new, borrowed, and blue.

There hasn’t been a single moment of frustration blocking our path, which is night and day from how we were going to do it before.

Great story…I had to get a strapless bra that fits under the dress, so I get my best friend to come along with me, thinking we would be wandering around for hours trying to find the perfect bra. But we walk into the first store, dress in tow, and I find a bra that might work. And it did! FIRST TRY! It just reinforces the fact that this is so right…it’s running so smoothly!
Now let’s just hope we don’t have a problem getting over the border!

Nothing has changed, and everything is different.

Says Heidi:

We’re back from Canada now, struggling through life as usual. I’m working on the all the dreaded end-of-semester work and Brittany is attempting to manage her department in a retail store.

Things are back to normal. We clean our house, feed our cat, snuggle together and treat each other with the love and respect we always have.
But everything is different.

We got our marriage certificate in the mail the other day, and our tears flowed almost as freely as the day the Canadian marriage commissioner pronounced us married.

We stood before her fire, each with one flower in our hands, and professed our love in front of five of our family members. Brittany even tried to wipe a tear away with the bud of her flower, rather than let go of my hand. My cheeks hurt from an entire day of constant smiling.
They still hurt.

Yes, we are still the same couple we were before we got married. We love each other just as we always have. We continue our lives with the same knowledge of who we are and what we will always be.
But now, it’s real.

And we have the certificate to prove it!