"I do" at midnight

On 29 March 2014, a midnight struck in England and Wales that many couples had been waiting for for years. As the clock struck twelve, same-sex couples were allowed to marry for the first time. Some did not want to lose a minute. In Brighton, London, Sheffield and other cities, they were already standing in front of the registrars to say "I do" straight after midnight.

Andrew Wale and Neil Allard received particular attention. The couple, together for seven years, married in Brighton's Royal Pavilion, surrounded by cameras from all over the world. Wale said afterwards that as a child he had often looked at his parents' marriage certificate. Now signing his own was overwhelming and at the same time a little surreal. In the London borough of Islington, Peter McGraith and David Cabreza were married. McGraith compared the previous exclusion to the feeling of having to sit at the back of the bus.

Civil partnership, with largely the same rights, had existed since 2005. But many felt it was second-class marriage. Parliament had passed the law opening marriage the previous summer, against considerable resistance from within Prime Minister David Cameron's own ranks. He nevertheless clearly backed the reform: if a law kept people's love apart, then the law had to change. That weekend, rainbow flags flew over government buildings in Westminster.

In the first forty-eight hours, ninety-five same-sex marriages took place. Scotland followed on the last day of the year, Northern Ireland only in 2020. The Church of England stuck to its no and was exempted from the new law. For the couples of that night, something else mattered. They were now quite simply married.