TRANSFORMING STRANGERS INTO WEDDING GUESTS IN OCCIDENTAL PARK
On a hot Saturday afternoon, we saw you getting married on the bricks of Occidental Park in Pioneer Square. Your wedding was formal—small, not tiny—but having it right there in public invited everyone in. A gold streetcar dinged as it left the station. Your friends and family looked on, but so did locals and tourists passing by. It was like you wanted us to share in your joy. Or maybe you wanted to remind us that joy exists at all when the world can be so full of hate. Or maybe the venue is just cheaper if you let them park your ceremony outside on a public street. “Since the dawn of history,” the officiant read, quoting Justice Anthony Kennedy in Obergefell v. Hodges, “marriage has transformed strangers into relatives, binding families and societies together.” At 5:44 p.m., with the crowd you chose and the crowd you didn’t looking on, she pronounced you husband and wife. You kissed and your friends cheered and the gawking crowd moved along…