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WINNIPEG — Paula Rutledge and her mother are both Canadian marriage commissioners. They discuss their choices about which couples to marry, how to conduct ceremonies and the incredible rush of joining two people forever.

The big difference between their roles is Rutledge's couples are of the same sex.

"I'm coming to almost as many weddings as her," said Rutledge, who has performed weddings for about three years. Her mother's been a commissioner more than twice as long.

Rutledge and her spouse, Rita Leonard, run PrideBride, an Internet-based service that helps plan weddings for same-sex couples. They started their Web site in 2003, before such marriages were legalized in Manitoba, and business has been booming.

"We are getting busier and busier," Leonard said.

Many of their clients are from the U.S., including some from Minnesota. Same-sex marriages are not recognized in most U.S. states.

Although across Canada there's been significant debate about whether same-sex marriage is appropriate, Leonard and Rutledge said they've received little flak about their nine-year relationship or their business. In fact, finding vendors to serve their business has been easy in this city that prides itself on being "gay-friendly" and even has a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender curling team.

"There has only been one vendor that's ever expressed anything negative," Leonard said. She said she respected the business owner's honesty and moved on.

Most vendors have been more like Arlene Bohn, owner of Just the Perfect Place, a flower store off of one of Winnipeg's main streets, they said. She said she has no problem with gay marriage.

"It's a good thing, and why would you stop a good thing?" said Bohn. She wants all people to feel comfortable buying flowers from her — no matter what their sexual, religious or ethnic identity.

That unbothered attitude is clear on the streets of Winnipeg.

"It's just two humans living together," said Hans Kooij, who was born in the Netherlands, where same-sex marriage has been legal for about five years. "I think it is perfectly right."

That her mother, Rita Leonard, might someday marry Paula Rutledge never occurred to Caycie Soke, Leonard's daughter who lives with Leonard and Rutledge.

"It never crossed my mind that they could have gotten married," said Soke, an articulate 17-year-old who speaks four languages, holds down two part-time jobs and hopes to become a lawyer.

Even once they could join in matrimony, legalized in Manitoba at the end of 2004, Leonard and Rutledge took their time. After all, like same-sex couples across Canada, they already had the legal rights and responsibilities of their union through a common-law process.

They waited nearly a year to tie the knot in a small ceremony Sept. 25, 2005.

Looking at an online photograph of their wedding featured on their business's Web site, Rutledge said, "That's truly us."

Caycie said the fact that her mother found a life partner of the same sex didn't faze her.

"I thought it was great. But it wasn't really about me," she said, adding that Leonard and Rutledge's relationship has given her a strong sense of self. "I have a lot of my own goals."

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/politics/capitol/14513995.htm

Rachel E. Stassen-Berger can be reached at rstassen-berger@pioneerpress.com.

Pride Bride's Paula

Official Marriage
Commissioner in Manitoba

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