Celebrating Our 20th Anniversary in Vancouver

On August 13, 2005, we held our ceremonial wedding in Mesa, Arizona, with 75 family members, friends, and work colleagues in attendance. Everything was perfect, except one thing: No marriage license.

At that time, the only state in the US where same-sex couples could get legally married was Massachusetts, but same-sex marriage was legal throughout Canada. So five days later, on August 18, 2005, we were legally married in a small ceremony at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. 

We returned to Vancouver on our 10th anniversary and again on our 20th. Here are some photos from our visit to Vancouver from August 16 to 20, 2025.

Here are a few photos from Queen Elizabeth Park. We couldn’t find the exact spot where our ceremony took place twenty years ago. The park has changed over the years. 

We ate our celebratory dinner at Seasons in the Park, a nice restaurant in Queen Elizabeth Park that offers an impressive view of the Vancouver skyline. We returned on our 10th anniversary and again on our 20th.

On Sunday morning, we joined a group of about 20 people for a Really Gay History Tour of Vancouver. The creator and leader of the tour, Glenn, did an extensive amount of research and was an excellent storyteller. He leads the tour every Sunday at 10:00. If you’re ever in Vancouver on a Sunday, we highly recommend it.

This mural was painted on the side of a building at the end of the tour. Dave asked Glenn if there was a story behind it, and he replied that these are some of the jazz greats who have performed at what was once a jazz club on that spot. Today, the building houses a loan shop and a Thai restaurant.

On each visit to Vancouver, we have eaten at Earl’s, a local chain with trendy food and delicious drinks. We discovered that their test kitchen was located near the starting point of our tour, so after the tour we enjoyed brunch there. This is the Prosecco Punch, made of Aperol, Grand Marnier, white peach, fresh lemon, mint, basil, and a bottle of prosecco. The menu said it serves 4-8. On this day, it served two.

Dave ordered the Tomato + Feta Shakshuka, consisting of oven-baked eggs, roasted red pepper tomato sauce, black olives, feta, jalapeño, garlic toast, chipotle cayenne oil, and cilantro. Delicious!

We returned to the Museum of Anthropology on the campus of the University of British Columbia. It’s primarily focused on the history and cultures of the Native American people who inhabited the region for centuries, but it also displays some exhibits from Europe and around the world.

We visited the Vancouver cruise terminal. Twenty years ago, we were here to board a ship for a gay Alaska cruise for our honeymoon.

We visited an attraction at the Vancouver cruise terminal that showed two “flyover” videos – one for Canada and one for Iceland. They were both breathtaking! There’s a similar flyover video at Disney’s California Adventure park, and we rode one in Amsterdam when we visited there.

After flying over Canada and Iceland, we ate a late lunch at a nearby restaurant. The friendly waitress asked where we were from, and we told her we were from Arizona and that we were in town to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Even though it wasn’t the exact day of our anniversary (that was the previous day), she surprised us with this.

On our last day, we had some time to spend between checking out of our apartment and when we needed to be at the airport, so we visited the Vandusen Botanical Garden. It was lovely!

We had less than an hour, so it was a rushed visit. We’ll return for a longer visit on our 30th anniversary!