matthearn.com

This is quite lovely.

When gay marriage became legal in the District, Henry set his sights on a wedding. Bob wanted no part of it. “We’re accepted as two human beings, always as a couple. I said, ‘I don’t see any reason for it,’ ” he recalls. “Besides that, Vera Wang will never make a gown for me to wear.”

Henry reminded Bob of the reaction to the Helen Hayes Awards speech. Their shared life is the contribution they’ve made to the gay rights movement, he argued, and marriage solidifies that. “We’ve been an example,” he says.

So on June 20, at 5 p.m., the white-haired men walked out onto the balcony of the presidential suite of the J.W. Marriott and faced each other under an arch of billowing silk and saffron-colored flowers. Sixty-two years — to the hour — after they got together in that Baltimore bar, Bob and Henry were wed.

Here’s an interesting tidbit:

“We’re not only friends, we’re lovers, we’re brothers and, incidentally, along the way, in 1990, I legally adopted Bob.”

True story. When Henry was 69, he legally adopted Bob, who was 70. It gave them legal protections, offered an advantageous inheritance tax rate and made the pair into a family.

Moral of the story:

These six decades together have gone “like that!” Henry says, snapping his fingers. “It’s like life goes. My advice to anybody is, ‘For God’s sakes, enjoy your life.’ “