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25 wedding photos show the very first LGBT couples to marry in their countries and the stories behind themhttps://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/25-wedding-photos-show-the-very-first-lgbt-couples-to-marry-in-their-countries-and-the-stories-behind-them/slidelist/75657524.cms2020-05-10T15:07:24+05:30

25 wedding photos show the very first LGBT couples to marry in their countries and the stories behind them

Mia JankowiczMay 10, 2020, 15:07 IST

Finally, here's Sharni Edwards and Robyn Peoples in Northern Ireland, who married in February 2020. In her wedding speech, Peoples thanked the activists who campaigned alongside them to make same-sex marriage a reality. Cheers, ladies.

But they weren't the first. In 2012, You Ya-ting and Huang Mei-yu caused a stir with a symbolic wedding at a Buddhist temple in Taoyuan county, northern Taiwan.

Over in Asia, Taiwan became the first country to make same-sex marriage legal on May 24, 2019. This couple registered their marriage on that very day, and celebrated with a rainbow-colored party.

Two years later, Karl Kreile got to marry his longtime partner Bodo Mende in Germany, and became one of the country's first LGBT married couples. "This is a day we've waited a long time for," Kreile said.

Across the Atlantic, Richard Dowlin and Cormac Gollogly "raced" to be one of the first married gay couples in County Tipperary, Republic of Ireland, in October 2015.

On the other side of the country, Xu Na wiped tears from Xue Mengyao's face in West Hollywood. They were one of seven Chinese same-sex couples who won a trip to the US to be married after the Supreme Court ruling.

And a year later, in June 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled that gay marriage was constitutional. Ashby Hardesty and Rodrigo Zamora, one of the first LGBT couples to marry in the country, celebrated with a lot of glitter.

Months later, Sarah Keith and Emma Powell became one of the first gay couples to marry in England and Wales after the two countries changed their laws in 2014.

Around the same time, Sergio Miranda and Rodrigo Borda married in Uruguay, the second Latin American country to legalize gay marriage. Here they are embracing after their wedding at a civil registrar's office.

Next was New Zealand, which legalized gay marriage in 2013. Among the first to marry was this Australian couple, who had won an all-expenses-paid wedding trip from the New Zealand tourist board.

Next was France, when Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau married in May 2013 in Montpellier, considered France's most gay-friendly town.

Diogo and Gustavo also married in Brazil that day.

2013 was a big year for weddings. In March, Catia and her transgender partner Regis celebrated their wedding with Champagne in São Paulo, Brazil, after civil partnerships there were legally allowed to be converted into marriages.

Once Argentina legalized gay marriage, other Latin American couples flocked there to get married, like these two Peruvian women who were unable to wed at home.

Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre, in Argentina, became the first gay couple to wed in all of Latin America in 2009 after a series of legal battles. But this was fiercely criticized, with images of the couple kissing featured on many protest posters.

Iceland was next. In 2010, it not only amended the law to allow "two individuals" to wed, it also became the first country in the world with an openly gay head of state.

Four years later, their marriage became a reality when a new government passed a bill to allow same-sex couples all the same rights as heterosexual couples — except the right to adopt children.

The next LGBT wedding — or at least, the next attempt to — was in Portugal in 2006. Here's Helena Paixao and Teresa Pires leaving a registry office in Lisbon after their attempt to marry was rebuffed.

Some eleven years before South Africa legalized same-sex marriage, this couple exchanged unofficial vows at the country's first biracial gay wedding.

But this wasn't the first gay marriage in Spain by a long shot. In 1901, Marcela Gracia Ibeas and Elisa Sánchez Loriga had a Catholic wedding after Sánchez Loriga dressed up as "Mario."

Over in Spain, Emilio Menendez hid his sexuality in Gen. Francisco Franco's army and had to wait 30 years before he could legally marry Carlos Baturim in Spain in 2005.

No attack came, but the state refused to recognize the marriages. Hawkes had used a legal loophole to wed the couples and, when the government refused to register the marriages, his church sued (and eventually won).

Canada's path to same-sex equality was also long and windy. In 2001, Rev. Brent Hawkes was so nervous marrying the first two gay couples, he wore a bulletproof vest under his robes in case they were attacked.

Peter Lemke and Frank Wittebrood — one of the four couples — looked delighted with their wedding rings. But there was a still long way to go with global attitudes toward gay marriage.

The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in December 2000. These four couples wed at Amsterdam's town hall literally minutes after the law came into effect on April 1, 2001.

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