My Anniversary Wish

Posted on June 17, 2011    Posted by      92 Comments

Today’s the 16th anniversary of my wedding; sixteen years ago my wife and I stood up in front of friends and family and made a vow to love and support and cherish the other as long as we lived. Then we kissed on it and we were married. I would not be otherwise.

My anniversary wish is that one day here in the United States — in all of the United States — anyone who wants to do what my wife and I could do sixteen years ago will one day be able to do so: Stand up with the person they love the most in the world, vow before friends and family to love and support and cherish each other, then to kiss and be married.

It’s a simple wish, but so far not an easy one to fulfill. I hope we get there.

In the meantime, to my bride: Thank you for saying yes. Thank you for the vows. Thank you for the kiss. Thank you for everything since. Thank you. I love you.

 

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92 Comments on “My Anniversary Wish”

  1. Note to (some) folks:

    I’m leaving the comment thread open, but this would be one of the times when you might ask yourself what would be the appropriate things to say in a comment thread tied into an entry about a guy noting his anniversary. I do not expect most of you will need this hint regarding introspection. But for those of you who do, here it is.

  3. Congratulations! Best wishes for continued happiness.
    Thanks for the reminder as well. Ours is tomorrow, I’d better get on it..

  5. You rock. Congratulations to you both! My partner and I have been married (in all the ways that matter except legal ones) for over 7 years, having been together for over 11. I share your wish.

  6. John, my husband and I share an anniversary with you and your lovely bride. Three years today.

    Congratulations on your sixteen years, and I add my voice to your heartfelt anniversary wish for everyone who wishes to marry.

  7. Happy Anniversary! Our 30th was back in December. I have the same wish, most notably for my beloved niece, who’s getting “married” in Georgia soon but has to travel to D.C. to get married.

  11. Congratulations! My hubby and I will be hitting number 17 in August and I also hope for the day when all my friends can be married, if they choose.

  12. Congrats to you and your wife and I hope you both many, many more happy years together.

    I, too, add my voice to your anniversary wish. I have faith that with a lot of hard work, we’ll get there someday.

  13. I’ll second your wish. If you ever want to write a textbook on rhetorical errors, just compile a list of arguments against gay marriage. None of them have been the least bit convincing.

    Happy anniversary.

  15. Congrats John and Krissey.

    You are a dear. You made me cry in Seattle talking about gay marriage and I’m grateful for your public support.

  16. Today is also my youngest daughters Birthday so celebrations all around. Best Wishes and may you both grow old together and surround yourselves with many happy grandchildren, great-grandchildren, etc. Now all you need to do is take her to her favorite restaurant and give her something very nice.

  17. Congratulations, John and Krissy, from both me and Nicola. We’re coming up on 23 years together, and we share your wish.

    Anniversaries are good! Have a wonderful day.

  20. Congratulations to both of you! It’s obvious over the years that you have been quite happy, which contributes to my happiness (by proxy as a fan of yours).
    As I am a New Yorker, I can totally support your wish for all people to be able to get married to whoever they are in love with. Crossing my fingers that maybe, MAYBE, this year our state Senate will get off their asses and make it happen.

  22. Congratulations to you both and I share your wish as well. :)

    My husband and I have been together for almost 19 years, and I always forget that we’ve only been married for 14 of them.

  23. Congratulations John and Krissy, and may you have many more to come.

    Toward that end I was going to suggest that you celebrate every day like it’s your anniversary. but I get the feeling you’re way ahead of me.

    By the way, you have my permission to embarrass Miss Athena with public displays of devotion and affection. It’s an effective way of instilling your values in her – she won’t be able to “get even,” so she’ll have to settle for passing it on by embarrassing her own children the same way. Thus is the circle of life renewed.

  28. John, thank you for your gracious words, and congratulations on your anniversary! My husband and I also celebrate our (civil) wedding anniversary on this date; our “family and friends” wedding ceremony was four years before that. We’re one of the 16K same-sex couples that got married in California between the Supreme Court’s ruling that refusing marriage licenses to ss couples was unconstitutional discrimination, and the passage of Prop 8.

    Paul Cook-Giles
    Santa Ana, CA

  30. sixteen years! congratulations on that. the wife and I are working our way up to that.

    as for your wish, I got a glimpse of it. I happened to be at a wedding quite recently where two women got to stand up before friends and family and pledge their life long commitment to each other. I got choked up like any other wedding. I think the phrase that summed it up for me was this: love wins.

    Love is one of those things that doesnt occur naturally in the world. you cant go mine love out of the ground. its something that people have to generate and that isnt always easy. so when I see two people doing the work and generating love in the world, it chokes me up.

    so congratulations and thanks for doing the work. and may your wish come true sooner than later, cause the world could definitely use a little more love.

  33. Congratulations John and Madam Emperess of the Scalzi household. I also would like to add my wishes that soon people who love each other and want to make a life together can enjoy the same rights.

  35. Congratulations!

    (And thanks for the continuing support for marriage equality. This is one fan who appreciates you all the more because of it.)

  39. Happy Anniversary!!!

    Hope you got Krissy whatever is the proper 16th anniversary gift.

    I also sincerely hope that your anniversary wish comes true within our lifetime.

  41. John, Here’s my 2 appropriate comments:

    1) Amen to that.

    2) Need a better picture of your wedding day. No one cares about the groom. It’s all about the bride. Now get scanning, please.

  42. Congratulations to you both! And thanks for being big-hearted enough to think about those who can’t do what you did.

  43. Spice & I have been together for about 37.5 years, married for the last 13 (it’s a long story, neither of us was in prison or anything dramatic.) She still surprises me every day.

    Congratulations, John and Krissy. Next year, when you look back at this anniversary, may you find that you’re happier and more in love with each other than you are today — and may that be true for every succeeding anniversary, until it seems that when you wed you didn’t know what either happy or love even was.

  46. Congrats! You already know, being married is work on both parts, then throw a a kid into the mix and it makes things harder.
    But, anything worth having is worth working for.
    so, congrats to 2 hard workers!

  47. Congratulations! I echo your wishes for any two adults who wish to be married to be able to do so.

  50. Of course, it’s very convenient for you that the 16th anniversary is traditionally known as the Zero Turn Radius Mower anniversary.

  52. Congratulations to you both. Enjoy an evening out in your Cooper Mini S Countryman All4

  53. John…there are tears in my eyes. Thank you for remembering those of us who can’t yet marry on your own anniversary.

    And congratulations, many more, and bright blessings!

  54. Happy anniverary to both of you! May you have sixteen and sixteen and sixteen more until you run out of sixteens.

    And here’s hoping one day we’ll be able to say this to lots more couples who love each other and would like the same thing you and Krissy have.

  55. Happy anniversary! Congratulations on the first 16 and may there be many times more than that coming.

  56. Congratulations ! Here’s wishing you 50 more wonderful years together.

  59. You are a very good Scalzi. And your wife is an even more awesome one. *g* Many happy returns to you both.

    As for your wish: So mote it be.

  60. Late to the party. Pie’s prob’ly gone, huh?

    fat man don’t need no pie

    SHUT UP, CONSCIENCE!

    there’s celery sticks

    ::sigh:: Sorry. Happy Anniversary!

  61. Suggestion: grab Krissy and Athena, pile into the Mini, and go for a road trip to the southeast, into the mountains of West Virginia. There are probably lots of windy roads there that’d be fun to drive.

  63. Congratulations! Marriage is definitely an awesome thing. I only have three years under my belt, but they’re three years that have proven to me how lucky I am that I got such a catch to say yes. It’s nice spending your life with the person you love more than anything in the world. I want to say that I too wish that some day, welive in a place that two adults that love each other more than anything can marry.

  64. Very nice wish. Society will eventually come around, I suspect love is one of those human traits which cannot be denied forever. Congrats on 16 years, what a wonderful example to set for Athena.

  68. Congrats and best wishes for your anniversary.

    I think it’s amazingly sweet that you would take a moment of your celebration (16 years! Woot!) to make such a wish. With allies like you, it might just happen.

  69. A very-nearly belated mazel tov from me, and an resounding ditto of your wish.

  70. Fair winds and light steps as you continue on your journey. May you travel far, see strange and wonderous things, meet people with open hearts and minds, and take and leave memories in fair proportion. May your journey end only when you will it, and may you look back and believe that it was all worth doing.

  71. I know I’m a bit late, but… Happy Anniversary, and many-many more years of happiness to you!

  72. A belated wish for another great year together as husband and wife. My 24th anniversary is in July. And I share your wish, not the least because I could wind up in love with a woman enough to seek to marry again should I survive my husband.

  73. We share the date but not the year. Ours was our 22nd anniversary. Congratulations.

  74. Mazeltov! Best wishes for many more years together. And I hope your anniversary wish comes true – sooner rather than later!

  75. Posts like this make this divorcee believe that love does indeed conquer all. The best to you and Krissy, and may your anniversary wish come true across this wide land.

  76. Happy anniversary, you two. After six-odd years of marriage, I think I’m finally starting to develop an appreciation for what it means to be able to have your union recognized by not just the state, but the rest of your community. But it will happen, eventually. Arc of the universe, and all that.

  77. Congratulations to both of you!

    And your anniversary wish made me cry. I wish that every day, too. Some of us are so very, very lucky to be able to marry the person we love. I so very much want everyone to be able to do the same.

  78. A belated congrats. It was 14 years on the 14th for me. I too share your wish.

  79. Congratulations, John & Krissy, may these be the first 16 years of many more to come.

    I will observe that I live in Connecticut, next to Massachusetts. In both states, your wish for marriage to be open to all has come to pass, and yet, the Apocalypse cometh not.

  80. Congratulations to you and Krissy and my hearty support for your wish. It brought to mind Janice Ian’s song “Married in London”, which I think can be downloaded from her site.

  81. Happy Anniversary Mr. & Mrs. Scalzi! You are like two peas in a pod! May you have 16+ MORE years of wedded bliss!

  82. Happy Anniversary! Thank you for your wish… it brought tears to my eyes. I know so many opposite-sex couples who are deeply aware, now, of this particular inequality… but I appreciate it every time. And I sure as hell don’t begrudge you your state-sanctioned happiness. :)

    We’ll get there.

  83. I sure hope that you will have a good future ahead of you too.

    I have an internet friend who I never have met in my life, and now I have heard that he’s ended up at the hospital for heart and kidney problems and he’s not even 50. He has an eight year old daughter.

    I and many others are worried about him since he’s one of those regular profiles that appears on a car-related internet forum.

  87. How sweet – the wish and the thank you to your wife. I hope Spousal Unit and I get at least as many happy years as you have so far, and I wish you many more. There’s nothing happier than loving someone that much.

  88. Congratulations (a day or so late) to both of you. Let’s hope that California continues in its trek towards marriage equality.

  90. Congratulations! We just celebrated our 37th two days ahead of you – love is grand!

    Thanks also for standing up for what is right

  91. Happy Anniversary, and while I’m sure Mrs Scalzi will oppose the idea, if you ever run for president (not of SFWA but of something far greater) you have two votes guaranteed here, at least, and I’m sure a whole lot more elsewhere too.

  92. Congratulations. It will be 16 years this Saturday for my wife and I – and I would like to join you in your wish.

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