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 Couple: Renee O. & Hattie O.
Married At: San Francisco, CA
Date Married: February 13th, 2004
Where They Live: California
Our Wedding Story:
The gift that just keeps giving…..
This past weekend was the best Valentine’s Day of my life. On Thursday evening my partner came home from work and I tossed out an idea. I told her about Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin and about how the Mayor of San Francisco was letting us marry.
We thought for a moment and decided we needed to hit the road. My friend Clayton Kroh accompanied us on our journey to make history. At 11:00 pm we told our 16 year old daughter we were off and headed out on the 8 hour drive.
We arrived in San Francisco at around 8:00 am, rented a hotel room, showered and headed down to City Hall. Being unfamiliar with the city we looked at a map and thought it was a short walk, instead we ended up walking nearly 12 blocks to the building. Only one protestor stood on the steps shouting, Homosexuality is a sin.
We stood in line behind hundreds of gay and lesbian couples all waiting for someone to burst in and slam the doors shut on us. We were interviewed by several news radio and print reporters.
After two long hours we reached our destination. A freshly volunteered clerk took our application and our Ids to being the process with a short smile and a ?Isn’t this a great day for us?.
We took our license and were cheered by the ever growing number of brides and grooms as we made out way to the rotunda for our ceremony. We were greeted by a very happy gentleman in a long black robe who introduced himself to us with a, “My partner and I have been together 17 years, it’s this wonderful?” We nodded in agreement.
Brought to tears by the moment we looked into each other eyes and pledged our love to each other. We kissed and then were whisked away to the registrar where we had to file our license to make it official. There we were, Hattie and Renee Olson, signed, sealed and delivered.
By 1:45 pm we were on our way back to the hotel where we collapsed in exhaustion. We slept a few hours and the headed out to a lovely seafood dinner on Fisherman’s Wharf.
It took us nearly 10 hours to get back home on Valentine’s Day with traffic. We stopped in here and there to get gas and to pick up another city’s newspaper to have the clippings for our scrapbook. As we walked into the door, our 16 year old daughter, Lacy, was excited as she pointed us to the counter. She had bought us a card for our wedding. As I looked over the counter my little girl had done one more thing that was to me, more rewarding than everything I had experienced up to that point.
She had taken an old t-shirt and some rainbow markers and created a shirt for school. On the front of the shirt is said: I have two Mommies and they are getting married today in San Francisco. On the back it said: I have two Mommies and they CAN get married today in San Francisco.
My heart and eyes filled as I realized I was truly the luckiest woman alive. She wore this shirt to school as my wife and I stood in line waiting for our chance to be just like everyone else. What courage it took for her, a straight junior in her Junior year at a new high school to show up with that shirt on.
I’ve folded it up and placed it in the box with the cork from our wine bottle, our hotel bill and the newspaper clippings that will commemorate this Valentine’s Day 2004. What a great day for everyone.
Renee Potter Olson
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