Gay London Life | May '24 Edition - Magazine - Page 20
I Do, I Do, I Do
With it being ten years since gay marriage was legalised in the UK,
we spoke with three couples who’ve since made the plunge
attending Matt’s 50th birthday party – our parents, family, and friends were
unaware of our true plans.
While our guests were making their way into the Old Library from across
the road, Simon, myself, and the epic Maria Hurtz waited in a side room, eagerly
listening to the excitement as our guests realised it was a wedding – the
door greeted them with ‘Welcome to Matt & Simons wedding’. The tangible
happiness from everyone was overwhelming.
It was important that our moms walked us down the aisle to the iconic
Star Wars theme tune, a surprise that left them and us totally emosh! Our best
friends were our
ring-bearers. After
the ceremony,
brilliantly
conducted by
Maria Hurtz in her
drag self (who
Simon and Matt
even fended off
heckles from my
Our journey began when we met at the Retro Bar on January 26th, 2014,
mom, The Jackie),
immediately connecting over our mutual love for Courtney Love, Kate Bush, and
we celebrated with
Juliette Lewis — it felt like a magical whirlwind. We celebrated two weeks after
cocktails, delicious
meeting with a weekend getaway in Alburgh over Valentine’s Day. The following
food, face painting,
year, we took the next step and moved in together, combining our furry families
drag queen bingo, and a live band. As a nod to our shared interests, we named
into our shared home. In a musical gesture, Matt proposed to me after an Alanis
the tables after our favourite bands – the Kim Deal table was, of course, the best.
Morissette concert in 2022.
Our commitment was sealed twice! First, we had an intimate registry office
The fact that we were able to get married freely and without the hate
that sadly exists in parts of the world inspired us to encourage donations to
ceremony on May 20th 2023 in Birmingham, followed by a grand celebration
kaleidoscopetrust.com. The day was truly special, tailored to our wants – down
(also staying at the amazing Grand Hotel before) at the Old Library in the iconic
to the glittery Converse trainers we wore and the tropical theme. It was truly the
Custard Factory. To keep the occasion a surprise, we told everyone they were
happiest day of our lives.
guessed correctly one evening that I already had a ring. However, it turns out
she was also planning to do it just a month later when we went to New Orleans
on holiday.
We had planned to get married in 2021 but Covid ruined that. We ended
up postponing until April 2022, when we got married in the New Forest in an
adorable little hotel with all our family and friends.
It was genuinely the best day either of us has ever had and we couldn’t have
asked for more. Everything went to plan, both sides of the family came together
really quickly and easily, and the staff at
the venue went above and beyond. To this
day, our family still comments that it’s the
best wedding they’ve ever been to!
Our wedding was (tastefully!)
dinosaur themed with all the tables
having dinosaur names and an ‘adopt
a dino’ basket as a party favour for the
guests to take home. We still get photos
Kate and Claire
every so often from family showing off
which one they took.
Kate and I have been together since the summer of 2017, mere months after Kate
Other than the general format of the
moved back to the UK after living in New Zealand. We met on Tinder, but never
day (and our dresses) there was nothing
should have as we were living over 100 miles apart! Turns out we’d both been in
traditional or religious about our wedding.
London the weekend beforehand and our locations hadn’t been updated.
When we got chatting, we soon realised that Kate was based in Worthing
However, it was important to us that we
could become a legally married couple, especially knowing that we wouldn’t
and I was in Cambridge. For months we were long-distance, then moved to
have been able to not that long ago. We both feel proud, fulfilled and ready for
Essex together towards the end of 2018. I proposed to Kate in 2019 after she
the adventures that lie ahead!
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