Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.

I never thought I would need for these four items. Not until the past summer, when I asked my boyfriend to marry me.

The invitation.

We discussed when to tie the knot, eventually deciding on the fall, six months after my proposal. Hurried wedding plans followed, while at the same time I struggled to plan last year’s Pride event. My fiance, Josh, handled most of the wedding details alone.

Believe me, one person planning a wedding alone–an out of state gay wedding no less–does not go well. Once the Pride event was complete, I threw myself into helping him.

We originally decided on having a small ceremony in the Washington, D.C. area (the closest place we were legally allowed to marry) with a larger reception here in Hampton Roads. Sadly, planning a wedding in one city with a reception in another got the best of Josh. We decided to go with a simple outdoor ceremony on our anniversary, October 6th. Josh would tell you that I picked it so that I’d have only one day to remember, but in truth, it was because I thought it would be romantic. (Insert awwwws and snide remarks here.) It wasn’t until we looked at a calendar a few days later that we realized October 6 was a Wednesday. Now we were planning a wedding three and a half hours a way–during the middle of the week.

As if things weren’t hard enough already.

If you have ever planned an outdoor event, you know that one of the first things to do is scout locations. We searched online for likely spots and off to D.C. we went. We left early one July morning with a mind to combine scouting and a museum visit. Only three parks in the capital allow weddings, so we didn’t really have much choice.

The first location was on a hill in the northwest section of the District. It wasn’t bad, except for the parallel parking on a hill it required. We climbed the hill for a good look. We found a spot overlooking a cascading waterfall fountain and pretty much knew that Meridian Hill Park was the place.

Date set and location chosen. Now we needed to find someone who could perform the ceremony in D.C. for a same-sex couple. Did I mention that Josh is Wiccan and wanted a Wiccan high priestess to perform the ceremony? Josh sent out e-mails, scores of them, to every person, group, and organization he found on the Web. To my amazement, six weeks before the big day, we found a high priestess who was willing to help. Off to D.C. we went to meet with her.

Handfasted to each other, and with Priestess Angela officiating, we take the plunge on October 6.

Our minister, Priestess Angela was amazing: She set our minds at ease about the ceremony, asked questions about our families and how we met, told us about herself and her husband. She made us much more excited to be getting married.

After applying for the most important document of our lives–the marriage license–just one obstacle remained before the wedding: meeting each other’s families.

Josh’s mother and younger brother arrived from Rapid City, S.D. the Saturday before the wedding, giving me a few days to get to know them beforehand. Josh’s younger brother was a surprise guest; he’d been telling my fiance for three months that he wasn’t coming because he couldn’t get time off work.

Almost instantly, we were one big happy family.

Before we knew it, the exciting moment came. My fiance wanted to have a traditional Wiccan handfasting for our wedding ceremony, so we created a silver and gold handfasting cord made out of ribbon. My mother–good Christian woman that she is– asked just what kind of ceremony was this that we were having (even though she had been told three times that we were having a traditional handfasting and what it entailed). Our minister gently explained the ceremony to her.

The betrothed couple: That's James on the left, Josh on the right.

After all the rehearsing and explaining and the last of the guests arrived, the ceremony began. It was brief, we had no chairs and didn’t want everyone to have to stand for long. (The National Park Service allows no chairs in its parks.) We wrote our own vows. Mine were short and to the point (unlike this article). Josh’s were longer; he even worked in a jab at my being jaded and stubborn. (Good job, hubs.)

Then it was over. We were married. We walked down the hill as husband and husband.

The reception was fun and pleasantly uneventful,  held at La Fourchette in northwest D.C. It gave all of our friends and relatives, who now have something in common, a chance to talk. There was a lot of fodder; I mean, how many gay, Wiccan weddings have you been to? A good friend supplied a cake (it was already cut, which precluded the traditional knife-wielding, but it was tasty), that everyone enjoyed. The bill, as weddings go, was a bargain: $550 for 17 people.

Our mothers were headed back to Hampton Roads without us. We walked alone to the Metro station as a couple, a married couple. We didn’t argue at all the entire drive home; being too busy keeping each other awake. He stayed in Newport News, where his family encamped. I pushed on to Virginia Beach, so that I’d be there when my mother woke up in the morning.

So there it is, the story of our wedding. And so it begins.

James is the president of Hampton Roads Pride. Out in the Park is June 5th.