Virginia is for lovers.

They say Virginia is for lovers. It’s easy to believe — the way the hills roll wide and gentle, the trees leaning in like they’re listening, the way everything slows down just enough for you to catch your breath. It’s beautiful. So beautiful, you almost forget where you are.

Because Virginia, like so many places, holds that tension — beauty and bigotry, softness and shadow. It’s a state where queerness still moves carefully in certain spaces, where the freedom to love openly hasn’t always come easily.

But on this day, in the middle of that countryside, something else took root.

A wedding. A queer wedding. For two brilliant, loving, luminous women who asked me — both of them — to officiate. My first wedding ever. A moment so clear, so deeply aligned, that I didn’t hesitate.

When they asked, something within me shifted. It wasn’t just excitement. It was clarity. Like I’d been waiting for this without even realizing it. I wasn’t stepping into something unfamiliar — I was stepping into something that already knew me. I felt calm, grateful, and steady. The words came easily. Their story — full of playfulness, care, reverence — gave me everything I needed. Writing their ceremony felt like sculpting something so familiar, a remembering.

The day itself held that same energy — of ease, of truth, of deep love. The air was soft and slow. Friends and family filled the garden with warmth and anticipation. And when the two of them walked toward each other — full of joy, full of knowing — the whole space seemed to settle into stillness.

Their vows were honest and tender, funny and unguarded. The kind of words that ripple out past the moment. And when I said the words — “By the power vested in me, I now pronounce you Mrs and Mrs” — something erupted in all of us. The kind of collective exhale that happens when truth is spoken out loud and everyone in the room knows it’s right.

There was one part of the ceremony I had practiced many times. Each time I read it aloud to myself, it welled tears in my eyes. I told myself I’d keep it together — that I’d deliver it cleanly, clearly. But as the day approached, I realized: the rawness is the realness. So when my voice caught, right on cue, I let it. I let the emotion live in my throat, in the air, in the space between us. And in perfect timing, I spoke these words — carrying not just my voice, but the voices of every queer soul I could feel standing behind me. The room sobbed with me:

“And how powerful — how holy — that we stand here in Pride Month. That we honor not only this love, but every act of bravery that brought us to a place in time where two women can stand together and say to the world without fear: We choose each other. We are proud of this love. We are proud of who we are.”

“In celebrating Kirsten and Nichole, we celebrate every soul who ever fought to love freely. Their love is a victory. Their joy is a testament. Their marriage is a prayer answered by countless generations who dreamed of this day — and a sign of hope for the future.”

That moment lives in my bones now. Not just because it was beautiful — it was — but because it was true. It reminded me that queer ceremony is not just celebration. It’s continuation. It’s healing. It’s a spell spoken aloud for all of us, past and future.

And then — like a scene written too perfectly to believe — a rainbow stretched across the sky. A real one. Not a metaphor. Not a filter. An endorsement from the heavens.

Afterward, we danced barefoot in the grass. We passed joints under the stars. We hugged too long and sang too loud and no one held back. There was no pretending. No shrinking. Just joy, in its most expansive and untamed form.

And me? I was in it. Not just observing, not just guiding — belonging. I’ve held a lot of sacred space over the years, but this was something else. It wasn’t work. It wasn’t a role. It was a return. I felt every part of myself arrive in that moment. I knew I was on my path. That this wasn’t just a ceremony — it was my ceremony, too. The threshold of my future becoming.

This Pride Month, I hold that day close. Not as a sweet memory, but as a mirror. A reminder of what queer love really is: not a trend or a trope, but a lineage. A spiritual inheritance. A truth that keeps finding ways to bloom.

So yes, Virginia is for lovers.

And on this day, it was for us.