By Melody Griffiths

Vanessa Spurr and I are a pre-operative male-to-female transsexual couple that lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. I am 22, and Vanessa is 29. This is the story of our commitment ceremony to each other, and how we got there.

In January of 1996, I was in the process of transitioning from a male to female social role, and I had a support group meeting of other TS's in Victoria to go to.

I had been told by a friend of mine that a new person, Vanessa, was going to be there that night, who was younger and was working full-time as a woman. At that time I was hunting around for some kind of role model, and I was hoping she would be it.

So, after "making myself up", my Dad and I went off to the support group meeting. And I met Vanessa.

Vanessa was astounding, and even though I know now she was overacting, because she was as nervous about meeting me as I was about meeting her, she looked very, very good and her voice was exceptional. Even my Dad was hitting on her. (*giggle*) But I was not so happy -- I felt rather outclassed and unhappy about it, so we didn't stay for very long. But, Vanessa gave me her phone number, and I told her I'd call her later.

A couple days later I called her, hoping she could help me with my transition, and she agreed. So, we met and talked for a while, and went out to the local mall. I slowly started to get a little more realistic about my perceptions towards her, and we became a little more friendly.

Now, I had wanted to move into a new place (I was living with my parents at the time) to start living full-time as a female, and when I mentioned this to her she told me that she too was looking for a new place as things weren't working out where she was currently living. So, over the next month or so we found a place, and moved in.

For the first two months we lived together we found ourselves slowly getting closer to each other, and developing a relationship dynamic. It was one of those things that just fell into place on it's own -- with no direction really on either of our parts.

I didn't realize how close, however, until a house party we had two months after we moved in together -- Vanessa (who still denies any luscivious intent) bought me a short red cocktail dress for the party. (About $100.) I was happy, but cautious -- I had been involved in relationships before where the people who gave me gifts "wanted something back" and I wanted to find out if this was the case here.

So, after everyone went home I confronted her, and asked her if there were "any strings attatched" to this dress. She said no, but after a bit of discussion she admitted that she had feelings for me and I, her... and we decided to try having a relationship, because we felt it would be uncomfortable if we continued being just roomates feeling the way we did.

Well, being a transsexual couple can be quite complicated, but somehow we managed to make it work, and 4 happy months down the road we decided to schedule a commitment ceremony for around our 7 month anniversary. A Commitment Ceremony is a church ceremony designed to show two people's loyalty, in heart and spirit, to each other.

Much like a wedding, but designed for situations where a traditional wedding mold does not fit, it shows that two people are bonded in soul to each other. And this fits the purposes needed by a lesbian wedding fairly well.

It can be conducted, I imagine, in a number of ways but in our case we decided to conduct it much like a traditional wedding, with the march of the brides, giving away, vows, and those sorts of traditional things. But, being not a union of a man and a woman there were several distinct differences.

Why would we want such a ceremony? We wanted to show the world, I suppose, that we were serious about our relationship. As well, we wanted to tie ourselves closer together in spirit. And, of course, we wanted to tell God.

My parents were happy for us, and supportive of the idea, but a little leery about the shortness in time of us knowing each other. But, they told us they'd help us out with the ceremony. Vanessa's parents on the other hand were not too terribly enthusiastic about the whole idea, and they still aren't, but they are conservative and not very accepting about anything -- although they are slowly coming around. They would not take part in our ceremony.

But, we decided to go ahead anyway. The first thing we had to do was find a place to have the ceremony, and a church official to preside over it.

A gay friend of ours did some looking around for us, and he heard a rumor about a United Church in town that would possibly preform such a ceremony. So, after some calling and digging around we discovered a Reverend Beverly Tracey at the Metropolitan United Church in Victoria. We arranged to meet, and discussed some preliminary arrangments. What we wanted seemed to be possible -- all we had to do was arrange it.

The next hurdle was arranging some kind of finances to pay for it -- and since Vanessa had a bond coming in from her work in October we decided to hold off the wedding until then so we could pay for it.

After I recieved conformation that we could have our ceremony in the chapel of the church, and a date -- the 19th of October, I started doing invitations, and sending them out. Soon, the big day came.

People started arriving at the church at about 10 minutes to 1. I delegated a friend to hand out programs, and tell people not to throw stuff inside the chapel (as we had gotten the chapel for no fee and did not want to make extra work for them.)

These people joined us in the ceremony.

Reverend Beverly Tracey - Master of Ceremony
Anja (Melody) and Candace (Vanessa) - Maids of Honor
Cassie (Vanessa's Friend) and Don(Melody's Dad) - Friends and Family

We congregated just outside the enterance to the chapel while the prelude music played and adjusted ourselves. We were somewhat nervous and excited, but everything generally went smoothly. Inside the church a modest crowd of our friends and family were assembling.

Soon, the Prelude music was over and the March-In music began. The Reverend went first, followed by the maids of honor. Then, my father (Don) and I proceeded arm and arm followed by Vanessa and Cassie. (Vanessa's father declined attending.) When we reached the front of the chapel, we spread out, and the ceremony went something like this:

- A Greeting by the Reverend to the Assembled Friends and Family.

- An opening prayer, where the couple and the assembled congregation were blessed.

- A statement of purpose, what we were there to do.

- The blessing of family and friends, where the congregation was asked if they would support our union. (They did.)

- Readings from Deuteronomy 30: 11-20 (Passage about living your life or wasting it) and 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8, 13 (About love.)

- Meditation and Prayer.

- Question of Intent, where we were asked if we wished to commit ourselves to each other.

Then we read our vows:

(We each repeated this:)

  This flower symbolises my spirit,
  My thoughts and emotions,
  Which I give unto to you to nurture and grow,
  Calm and sooth,
  Care for and love.

  (Then we gave our partner a flower.)

  This ring symbolises my body,
  My physical form,
  Which I give unto you to comfort and heal,
  Love and protect,
  Rescue and aid.

  (Put the ring on our partners finger.)

  These two make up the whole of myself,
  and this whole I give unto you,
  With a promise that I will be with you,
  Inside this ring, inside this flower, inside yourself,
  For all eternity.

The signing of the Covenant Document. Although not legal, as a marriage license, it's symbolism is very important to us.

 Certificate of Covenant

                      This Certifies That
                      on the 19th day of October
                      in the year 1996


                      Vanessa Spurr of Victoria B.C.

                      and

                      Melody Griffiths of Victoria B.C.

                      were united by me in a Holy Union
                      at Metropolitan United Church, Victoria.

                      (Signed) Beverly Tracey, Minister.

                      (Signed) Melody Griffiths - Anja Jones
                      (Signed) Vanessa Spurr - Candace Sauve

After the ceremony, we greeted our guests outside the church, and proceeded up to the hall where our reception was being held. My family put this together, and they did a pretty good job. We had the traditional -- toasts, the wedding cake, the dance between us. It was alot of fun, and was a very nice reception for what we had to work with. One can have a very nice wedding without spending $10,000...

Looking back, it was a most fufilling experience, one that I'd do again in a heartbeat. Despite the stress and anxiety involved, there just is nothing like getting married. That ultimate expression of love.

At the time of this writing, 7 months after our ceremony, we are still happily in love with each other -- of course we have our problems, but what couple doesn't, and we love each other enough to conceed when things get rough. And with a bit of luck, we'll still be together 10 years from now.

If you would like to see more photos of our commitment ceremony, you can find our full photo album here.

Melody Griffiths is a 22 year-old pre-op transsexual living full-time in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She is a musician, a keyboardist and composer who loves cats, kids, flowers, and art of all forms. She can be mailed here -- or check out her homepage.