There was a time when gay marriage wasn’t legal in this country. As much as my partner and I wanted to be legally married we couldn’t. Fortunately, the tides turned and that day finally came together for myself and a lot of other people.
That’s pretty much when I realized that the right to love and marry who you want is one of the most important things in life. And it doesn’t matter if you’re heterosexual, if you fall somewhere on the LGBTQIA+ rainbow, your parents don’t approve of who you’re marrying, you’re in a triad, people ostracize you for your Wiccan beliefs or your participation in the Furries community…love is love. Love is important. Love is unique, and it’s never the same for two different couples.
Here in Nevada, everyone has to have a license to perform a wedding. And that goes for religious institutions as well. When I sat for my class to get my Officiant License, the room was filled with pastors, priests and other religious figures who were more concerned with asking questions about how they could get around performing LGBTQIA+ weddings and fewer questions about the process itself.
So, I said “Screw that. I’m going to make a point of taking care of those people nobody else wants to honor.” This is why I focus on secular (non-religious) weddings with an emphasis on anyone that feels they’ve never been heard and don’t want to do things the way everyone else does.
I’ve had the opportunity to marry some of the coolest, most real people I’ve ever met in my life, and I’ve adored every couple I’ve met.
I’ve married several couples at the Starbucks in Green Valley Ranch Casino. I married a couple at a duck pond in North Las Vegas. I did a legal-only marriage in Summerlin so that the couple could still have their best friend perform the ceremony who didn’t get his one-day license registration in on time (they had their full ceremony just a few hours after meeting with me). I officiated a ceremony for a really bad-ass couple out at 7 Magic Mountains where they brought their own giant blanket.
I also married a couple of Hollywood stunt folks, the groom dying in his hospital bed in the living room. There was the gay couple where one of the grooms had been told his cancer was inoperable. The lesbian couple that feared for the safety of their children in the current political climate and were moving to another country. The elderly couple that had waited decades to marry.
Every one of my ceremonies is tailored to the couple in front of me. No two ceremonies are the same, because no two couples are the same. If you’re a D&D lover who wants a half hour ceremony or a couple that doesn’t want flashy and just wants to be married in five minutes, I can do it. I can make your ceremony anything you want. It’s all about you.
And it’s all about love.
With love,
Jay