‘Ottawa’ Capital Voices: ‘It was Important to the Kids that we Married’
In anticipation of Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations, the Citizen’s Bruce Deachman has been out in search of Ottawans — 150 of them — to learn their stories of life and death, hope and love, the extraordinary and the everyday. We’ll share one person’s story every day until Canada Day.
Chris: “We’ve been together for 15 years and have two beautiful children, and have just been putting it off. We’re getting married in the Dominican, actually, in September, and we’re doing our ceremony at city hall because it’s legal here. We could have done it legally there, but it’s just easier up here.”
Jamie: “Yeah, we’d just put it off.”
Q: Was there a particular reason to do it now?
Chris: “It was just good timing. The kids are at a good age; if we’d done it when they were younger, they wouldn’t have remembered it.”
Jamie: “And it was important to the kids that we married, so that I had the same last name as my children. That was important to them. They’re eight and 11. I don’t know if they learned something in school about tradition, but it was important to them.”
Q: Tell me about your attire.
Jamie: “I wore my dress. I was given this dress by a friend of mine. And then I was at a church garage sale and I saw another one that I absolutely loved, so I needed to have both. I got this one fixed, but I’m not comfortable in heels so I wore the good old running shoes. The dress from the garage sale I’ll wear in the Dominican.”
Chris: “The one at the garage sale was an $800 dress that we got for $70.”
Jamie: “And all the money went towards kids at the church’s summer camps.”
— Jamie Rock (formerly McMurphy) and Chris Rock. City hall, Feb. 1, 2017.