Adrian Morgan, 29, trade union organiser, and Marc Battersby, 36, IT manager
A shared love of the television series Charmed, about three teenage sister witches, first attracted Marc to Adrian when they connected online on a social-networking site.
Four and half years later, they have visited the set in San Francisco, spotted Steven Spielberg there, and have been photographed on the sofa in “Central Perk,” the cafe in Friends. “It’s so small, I don’t know how they fitted four people on there,” says Adrian.
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He and Marc first met in person in a rooftop bar in Nottingham. Adrian noted from Marc’s online photograph what a “stylish, snappy dresser” he was. Marc was pictured in jeans and a finely striped jersey in subtle browns, reds and oranges. “It sounds superficial but style is important to me,” says Adrian. “However, what the photograph didn’t show was what a great physique and cute smile he has.”
“It was an instant attraction,” agrees Marc, immediately enamoured of Adrian’s “beautiful blue eyes”. Their conversation “joined up what we had been speaking about online”. By Christmas Adrian knew he wanted to spend “every Christmas” with Marc. “It’s about that feeling of being absolutely relaxed with each other, of being able to talk quite openly and freely.” Marc appreciates their shared outlook: “Adrian’s values — such as being able to settle with one person for life — are the same as mine.”
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The highlight for Marc of their ceremony will be watching Adrian enter the room in Norwood Park where they will have their civil partnership legalised in the presence of family, friends and two “best women”, and knowing that he is “the person I will share the rest of my life with. Like my parents, who have been married for 38 years, I want a lifelong relationship”.
He proposed to Adrian one sunset in Gran Canaria. “We were chatting about decorating our home when Marc said, ‘I think we should go ahead’. I said: ‘With what, wallpapering the living room?’ ” recalls Adrian.
In 2005, the year that civil partnerships became legal, Marc and Adrian bought matching commitment rings (platinum bands set with diamonds). “We are meant for each other,” says Marc, who describes himself as more “calm and collected”, while Adrian is “a constant chatterbox” who is “loyal, kind, and genuine. He thinks more about my feelings than about his own”. Adrian says that Marc has “an endearing vulnerability”.
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As well as the good times, epitomised by a Scissors Sisters concert they saw in San Francisco, they have survived tougher times too. Such as running into the Mexican police on a cross-border trip to sample chilli. “We decided to leave the border town,” says Adrian, “and got stuck in five lines of traffic as there had been an accident.” When a policeman demanded they follow him so that he could examine their papers, they refused, on account of the traffic. “The next thing we knew he had got the cars to move so we could shimmy through. I thought: “They know we are British and we need to get out of here,” Adrian jokes. Soon they found themselves in a “rough” street surrounded by onlookers with police saying that they lacked the correct permits. “He said we could pay a cash fine or they would impound the car. He didn’t take Visa.” Paying US dollars ensured that they and the car were escorted to the border. “We laugh now but it was scary at the time,” says Marc.
Their honeymoon will be spent in America, first in New York, where the itinerary includes a Sex and the City tour and later in Miami and Key West.