Andi And Phil
‘ Long before social media , people had to meet each other for real .’
Long before social media , people had to meet each other for real . We were at a Gay West new members ’ social evening and Andi was just helping himself to some trifle , when Phil came across and said ‘ oh , i ' ll have some of that .’
At the time , Andi was already dating another guy . Fast forward three months to when Phil invited him home for coffee – and the rest , as they say , is history .
We had a civil partnership in the first year after the regulations were passed in 2007 . There were three proposals from Andi to Phil before he finally said yes ! We didn ’ t have an official photographer for that , and sadly didn ’ t get any truly memorable pictures to put in a frame on the wall .
When equal marriage laws were passed we were not in any great hurry to convert , but knew that we would at some point . This time it was Phil doing the asking . We had a small group of close family and friends who attended our marriage conversion on the tenth anniversary of our original civil partnership , which was quite poignant as it meant that we could simultaneously celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary .
When we thought about how we wanted to celebrate our day , we soon decided that we wanted something with a small intimate group of friends that was stylish but not starchy . We also decided that we wanted to try and have the same original eight or so guests at the ceremony that came to our original civil partnership . Unfortunately , a couple of them could not be there and we had to decide on a couple of alternative friends to invite along , but at least we had the choice of a lot of good friends .
The ceremony took place at Bristol Registry Office , which at one point in history was actually a court house complete with prison cells ! More recently it was the seat of
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