Wedding AnnouncementsBy Laura Kiritsy Published: Thursday, March 3, 2005
|
For William F. Mokeler (right) and Paul Sagon, the four months preceding their marriage on October 3, 2004 were a whirlwind of wedding planning.
"We both kind of had every little girl's dream of having a big wedding," laughs Bill.
From settling on a color scheme - lilac, pale pink and white, to be exact - to shopping for vases, votives, candleholders and a cake knife, from wooing an overbooked florist to renting a tent, tables and chairs for their 84 guests, the couple orchestrated every detail of the elegant and tasteful wedding of their dreams, right down to the lavender and pink colored tulip bulbs that were wrapped in festive netting and given as wedding favors. When all was said and done the couple had logged roughly 30 trips from their Malden home to the southern coast of Maine, where they held their wedding and reception. (They were legally joined in a small ceremony at home later that day.)
But in the midst of minding the minutest of details, Bill, 36, and Paul, 41, managed to squeeze in four weeks of dance lessons at the Arthur Murray dance studio in Danvers. By the time they took to the floor for their first dance as a married couple, to the strains of the Celine Dion ballad "At Last," they were pretty light on their feet, so to speak. "Well, Paul told people that he didn't want to go out in front of everyone and have the two of us dancing looking like two gorillas," Bill confides.
Their wedding came two years to the day of their meeting on October 3, 2002. After becoming acquainted online through the Web site gay.com, they arranged a date at Fuddruckers restaurant in Saugus. Sparks flew over burgers, fries and a few games of pinball. "I think there was definitely something there," Bill recalls. "I think we both kind of knew there was something."
There was a common bond from the get-go: "Well, for one thing we're both bears," explains Bill. "We both like bears. So that's always a plus." Even before they met, Bill was smitten by an online photo of Paul sporting a leather jacket, beard and mustache.
Having left an unhealthy relationship a year before only to be turned off by the drama he encountered in the dating pool, Paul says that Bill's most attractive quality was "his normality." Of course, his blue eyes, which contrast strikingly with his silver hair, didn't hurt either. "Actually his pictures in his gay.com profile did not do him justice," says Paul. "I was very surprised when I actually saw him because he just was not very photogenic."
Ten months later Bill popped the pre-Goodridge question to Paul during a weekend retreat to the Gazebo Bed and Breakfast in Ogunquit. They had just taken in a sunset from their poolside perch in the inn's backyard when he made his move. "I thought this is it, I want to do this now," Bill recalls. "So I got down on one knee and asked him to be committed with me."
As luck would have it, they decided to postpone setting a date in order save some money and complete the refinancing of their home in both of their names. Four months after Bill's proposal, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that same-sex couples were entitled to marry in the state of Massachusetts. The vows of commitment they planned to make would now be legally recognized.
The couple returned to the scene of Bill's proposal for their wedding, which was officiated by the Rev. Ken delPo. Bill's Brother Michael served as his best man; Paul's best man was his friend Edward Harbist. The couples' pets served as their ringbearers. Outfitted with a rainbow garter fashioned into a collar and affixed with a small satchel containing a wedding band, their dog Puff, a white Maltese, was escorted down the aisle on a rainbow leash by his groomer Eileen Fay. Their similarly decked-out cat Sasha, a Maine coon and calico mix, was escorted by Bill's mother Dorothy Mokeler.
They celebrated with friends and family at a reception at the York Harbor Inn. The presence of so many loved ones - including four of his nieces and nephews - at their wedding, says Paul, made the day truly memorable.
"Everyone was so happy for us and actually, personally, that these were family members I had not seen in four years since my mother's funeral," he explains. "You know they're all from Massachusetts, but from the other side of the state. This had reopened some lines of communication with some of my family members.
"[It] broke off some others unfortunately," he adds. "But you know, the people who mattered were there."
In contrast, Bill will always remember the feeling of intimacy as he and Paul exchanged their wedding vows. "It was like the rest of the world had stopped," he says. "I could not hear anything except him talking. It was like our own universe at that moment, together."