Ten years on
Ten years on from their
historic civil partnership
ceremonies, those first
couples to e the knot are
not only celebra ng their
anniversaries, but looking at
how far we’ve come…
L
ast December was an important milestone for
same-sex couples in the UK, as we celebrated
ten years since the introduction of the Civil
Partnerships Act. For those who entered into a
partnership as soon as it became legally
recognised, the anniversary holds special resonance; who
could forget how far we’ve come in campaigning for the
same rights as any other married couple?
We embraced this opportunity by calling the civil
partnership ‘marriage’, and we carried on the good fight
towards true equality, until eight years later we could
celebrate the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013,
giving us two different options to have our unions
recognised in the eyes of the law.
By the end of 2006, more than 16,000 same-sex
couples had entered a civil partnership, with many couples
choosing to convert their civil partnerships to marriages
after the subsequent law change.
8 » pink weddings magazine
‘It’s amazing for us to look
back now and realise that
we were part of history...
We’d campaigned so hard
for a level playing field, then
there we were in the middle
of something so intensely
personal.’
GIno MerIano
Let’s celebrate!
