The book of love

For six years and four months I have loved Americo. Truth be told I have probably loved him longer, but we celebrate our anniversary on August 16th, and so today is six years and four months from the day we "officially" became a thing. An undefinable, complicated, long distance thing. 

For most of that time we have considered ourselves to be married, in the emotional commitment sense at least. It didn't matter to us whether the government or anyone else considered us married, we were as committed to each other as two people could be.

Today we made that official official. It was small (tiny really), but for us it was perfect. It was a warm but not hot. It was breezy, but not windy. In the dappled shade of the large oak trees at the Yarralumla gallery and cafe it was just divine.

It was a quick ceremony, with personal vows, that were very us and utterly perfect. For those of you that have followed our journey we didn't want you to miss out on our special day, so here are some photos and the text of our vows to each other.

 Americo's vows to Ruth

A vow is a promise, an oath. Sadly, there's nothing I can vow to say that I haven't vowed, or promised, or oathed (not a word) to you a thousand times before. In fact, o the day we are finally getting married, I can't promise you anything. I mean, I promised you we would be together, and here we are. I promised you I would love you forever, and six years in, I do, more and more every day. I promised you this day would come, and look, here it is. From here on out, the only thing I can really promise you is that whatever we face, whatever comes, we'll see it through together.  

But vows are something else as well. They're declarations. A shout into the ether that you believe something so earnestly regardless of who hears it. Normally declarations get lost in my ramblings, or scribbled in some notepad, or dismissed on social media. So hopefully here, no, they don't get so lost.  

Ruth, I love you. In all possible meanings and translations that that word has gone through, I do love you. From the moment I met you, I knew you were the one for me. I hope that each day from then, to now, to all the years ahead of us that I earn that love. You challenge me to be better in every way. You are my Yoda, my Wonder Woman. You are my Doctor. And I am looking forward to getting timey-wimey and spacey-wacy with you. 

With a little bit of wibbly-wobbly thrown in. 

Ruth's vows to Americo

Once, a long time ago, you wrote:

"Love isn't a movie, a book, a picture or a poem. Love is you, love me is, together we're in love. 

I didn't just fall in love with you, I've always loved you, I just had to find you first. " 

I'm so very glad you kept looking til you found me. 

From the day we first talked It was like I had known you, and loved you,  forever. 

You understand me in ways that nobody else had. 

You understand my crazy isnt really crazy, its just needed your patience to help me through the bad days. 

You understand that I'm passionate about my job, and sometimes it means working weekends and when I'm on holiday. You always keep me company instead of complaining. 

You understand that you aren't allowed to reorganise my kitchen. Or my linen cupboard. And I understood I needed to buy you a PS4 in order to convince you to move to Australia.  

I love that you love me enough to watch renovation shows and MasterChef. I love that I love you enough to watch Doctor Who and Lost. I love that we agree that Matt Smith just isn't quite the Doctor and the smoke monster was pretty stupid.  

I love that you're a feminist. 

I love that you think space is awesome. 

I love how you love movies, even the really bad ones. 

Especially the really bad ones.  

I love that you like cooking and that you can't drink hot coffee because it puts you to sleep. 

I love that you stuck around for 6 years, and 4 months until we figured out how to make this one country thing work, even when it was really really hard.  

I thank you for the thousands of hours tied to a headset. For the amazing airport reunions, and the heartbreaking departures. For the cards, letters and poems that were a constant reminder you loved me. 

For every holiday, apart and together. For never giving up. And for never letting me give up. 

Everything I am, everything I have learned in the last 6 years, every success I have had, it has been because you supported me. You held my hand (more figuratively, than literally) and told me I could do anything, and I did, because I believed you.  

To me, you have been my husband since the day you told me you were going to marry me so many years ago. Today you become my husband to the government and the rest of the world. And most importantly to the department of immigration.  

I am blessed to be your wife, and I promise I will love you more than coffee, cheesecake, and Eddie Vender, I sincerely promise that I will love you more very day, and I also swear, with every part of my soul, that I won't make you watch the Fast and the Furious movies more than once a year. 

For my husband... I told you today how much I love you, and I promise I will continue to tell you every day how much I value you and our relationship. And I swear that from now on I'll quit blogging our life. 


For those of you that couldn't be with us today... you were missed. Sometime in the future when we have our life sorted out we'll do a "proper" wedding when all of our friends and family can be part of the day. We both hope the photos make up for that a little bit.