Impatience leads to couple having NI’s first same-sex marriage

Robyn Peoples and Sharni Edwards will get married on Tuesday in Carrickfergus, though if NI’s same-sex marriage law had not been passed they were to have a civil partnership that day anyway to coincide with their sixth anniversary of being together.

The couple, who have been engaged for five years, had been part of the Love Equality campaign to get the law changed, but Sharni, 27, admits: “We just got impatient really.”

Last January they booked a civil partnership for February 11, 2020 to mark their six-year anniversary. Their options changed when legislation was passed by Westminster MPs who stepped in during the power-sharing impasse at Stormont, making same-sex marriage legal in NI as of January 13.

However, given the requirement for couples to wait 28 days after submitting their intention to marry, next week was the earliest same-sex couples could tie the knot.

“It was an accident, but it was a good accident,” said Robyn, 26. “We didn’t set out to be the first or have all this attention, but we are grateful to be able to set the way for the rest of our community.”

Robyn, who is from the Woodvale area of Belfast, said being a lesbian in NI has been a very positive experience: “I know that’s weird saying that growing up in Northern Ireland where you’re not equal, and now we are. I haven’t had any discrimination, my family is so supportive as is Sharni’s. But it’s not the same for everyone.”

The pair met in the Kremlin (a gay bar in Belfast) when Sharni, who is from Brighton, was here on holidays.

Sharni said: “As soon as we met that was it, we couldn’t leave each other’s side.”

Robyn said: “Flying back and forth wasn’t enough so I moved to England for a year, but I’m such a homebird I had to move back. Sharni came with me.”