Experience: we got married while Donald Trump was arraigned next door
The fourth of April is an important day for my partner, Christopher, and me. It’s when we had our first date last year, in a Spanish restaurant in New York’s Washington Heights. We’d been chatting online, assessing each other and asking questions. When we met, I knew immediately that he was different. It was love at first sight. He’s a wonderful guy, sincere and attentive. It’s miraculous in some ways: Christopher is Chilean and only intended to come as a tourist, then we met and decided we have something special. We got married exactly a year to the day after we met.
Our wedding at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau in City Hall, which is near the other New York courthouses, was supposed to be small and secretive, but it turned out to be more of a public event.
I’d known that Donald Trump’s arraignment was coming because of the media hype, but I didn’t really pay attention to it. We had no idea it was on the same day until an hour before our wedding.On our way to the ceremony, we bumped into someone we knew. He hugged me and said, “How strange that you’re getting married on the same day that Trump is getting arraigned.” In shock, I said: “What?”
It was hard to process. I was getting wedding jitters, too. We began walking to the bureau and the crowds started building – it was right next to where Trump was to go to court. I thought, “Oh, God, we’ve got to get to the church on time.” When we got within three blocks, it was impassable. We couldn’t get through the crowds because people were dancing with signs and playing Kool & the Gang’s Celebration. It was really quite a scene, although I was disturbed by the number of Trump supporters there, saying he had already won the 2024 election and things like that. I am sensitive, so there was sadness as those words registered with me.
It was supposed to be a three-block walk, but ended up taking eight blocks because we had to detour around the barriers and the police. We were suited, had a bouquet of flowers and were running through the crowd, trying to get to the courthouse on time while constantly being congratulated and getting a lot of attention.
I fed off the crowd’s energy. As we were passing through, I saw a sign that read “No one is above the law”. It made me think about how, because of samesex marriage laws passed by the state in 2011, and then legalised across the country in 2015, Christopher and I were able to get married. We have laws to abide by, to honour and respect, but the court next door would soon hold a man who seems to have abused the law and manipulated it constantly.
We were getting married at 2pm and as we were about to go in, Trump’s motorcade arrived. Before that it had felt like a celebratory street festival – despite the angry Trump supporters – but when he stepped out of the vehicle, the energy moved up a level; the crowds threw their arms in the air and yelled things like, “There is the big lie!”
I remember seeing the scaffolding on the courthouse; to me it represented the idea of being caged, in prison. But next to that, in the marriage bureau, there was joy, matrimony and union. By the time we left, he had left.
We did get to the wedding on time, despite the crowds, and couldn’t hear the craziness outside. Christopher and I were there together holding hands, I was looking into his eyes, my hands shaking, and I thought, “This is what I want. This is the steadiness I’m looking for, and this is love.”
Inside, there were about 15 other couples waiting in line. We all smiled at each other – it was like we were all saying, “This is the day we’re getting married?” It was unreal.
A lot of the couples were from other countries, especially those in Central America. Trump was vocal about groups he hated and didn’t want in the US. He created a new level of racism in this country – it had always been there, but he brought it to the surface. That was one of the saddest parts of his presidency, seeing immigrants live in fear for the first time in a long time.