Gay couple Mark Reed and Dante Walkup
married on the Internet after a 10 year engagement.
The men exchanged vows in Dallas,
Texas, where gay marriage is banned, via a Skype call that connected
them to Sheila Alexander-Reid, who officiated their wedding from the
District of Columbia. Gay marriage became legal in the nation's
capital in March.
Before the wedding, the men traveled to
D.C. to register their marriage, but said they wanted to hold their
ceremony in Dallas.
“The reason we wanted to do it this
way is because we wanted to have a wedding here in Dallas with our
family and friends,” Reed
told gay weekly the Dallas Voice. “It was very
important that all our family came.”
The couple held their wedding in a
conference room at the W Hotel, where they exchanged vows in front of
a 6-by-8 foot screen illuminated with the image from the
teleconference call.
“When we walked down the aisle, as
soon as we reached the front, she [Alexander-Reid] comes on the
screen like The Wizard of Oz,”
Reed said. “It was beautiful. It wasn't make believe. It was
like she was really there.” (A short video of the couple's wedding
is embedded in the right panel of this page.)
Such Internet-based ceremonies are
called e-marriages, and Reed and Walkup are currently lobbying
lawmakers in states where gay marriage is legal to codify the
practice to ensure such marriages are legal.