Northern Ireland Implements Equal Marriage for the First Time

Robyn Peoples and Sharni Edwards were the protagonists of the first same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland, a country in which equal marriage entered into legal force on Feb. 10.

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"It's an incredible dream, we didn't expect to be the first couple," said Sharni Edwards, who works as a waitress in Brighton.

"We fought for a long time for real equality and today we are here celebrating the wedding," her wife Robyn added.

For several years, the organizations of the 'Love Equality' coalition fought for the laws of Northern Ireland to change and allow equal marriages.

Over the last three years, however, substantive legal decisions were actively hampered by ultra-conservative parties and movements such as the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

In July 2019, however, British parliamentarians in London amended the legislation and opened the possibility for equal marriage to be implemented in Northern Ireland.

“Our message to the world on our wedding day is: We are equal. Our love is personal, but the law which said we couldn’t marry was political. We are delighted that, with our wedding, we can now say that those days are over,” Peoples said as reported by Post of Asia.