During the marriage equality campaign, it became harder to trust strangers as a queer couple. Homophobia had become a valid, widely publicised, political argument again. So when it was announced that Australia had voted yes to same-sex marriage, we felt relieved and bruised and exhausted. In spite of this, we both still wanted, and needed, to get married. Our plan was to create something positive, something that felt like it was ours, which meant a very DIY approach.

Australia's first same-sex marriages take place under special dispensation Read more

My partner is a member of a local online pay-it-forward group and had the idea of posting a request for any and all wedding decorations, just in case we could re-purpose forgotten things rather than consume new ones. Putting us, and our union, out in such a public forum felt frightening. I was surprised how wary we’d become; vulnerability felt like risk.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kat Patrick’s wedding cake. Photograph: Lucy Parakhina

But the internet works in mysterious ways and the response was immediate and tremendous. In less than 24 hours, complete strangers were offering to bake us 60 rainbow cupcakes for free, others wrote about the bunting and floor cushions leftover from their own weddings that we could use. There were things we hadn’t thought we would need but did, like enormous drink dispensers and small wooden signs we could use to indicate what food was what. We were gifted and loaned strands of multi-coloured flags, just-washed jam jars to hold candles; so many tender remnants from other people’s lives. Notification after notification rolled in.

With a wedding industry that had felt so alien to us, with its intense, Arcadian images of flower crowns and soft meadows and smiling heterosexual couples, this online community response became a salve. When you’re queer, you build families all the time. Community, at least for me, whether online or offline, or just for one night, or one morning or for a lifetime, bolsters you in a way that gets you through when everything else is boxing you in. This generosity of strangers was the most unexpected and beautiful extension of that.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Decoration for Kat Patrick’s wedding. Photograph: Lucy Parakhina

So I drove around the city, picking up little chalkboards with past messages still visible, tablecloths pristinely ironed, an entire box of glassware plastered with pages from secondhand books, made especially for a daughter’s wedding, themed as such because she is a librarian. There were worn, soft throw rugs that had entertained other groups, sets of comfy bums that enjoyed other ceremonies. We would get to weave all these elements into our own, new memory. The small traces of other lives, and other loves on each object we collected transformed these decorations – things you might not even notice at a big event –into something unique. These were the details that would make all the difference to us.

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As I arrived at each place, to another box of possessions left on a porch or friendly face, I grappled with accepting such generosity without suspicion that there would be something required of me. There wasn’t. Instead, I showed up to strangers’ houses, hair salons and places of work, often breaking down into tears, overwhelmed with the loveliness of it all. I was the one constantly in need of a hug, the one who needed them to understand how grateful I was, how hard it had all been, not the other way around.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The cut rainbow wedding cake. Photograph: Lucy Parakhina

I think, with all the traditions of marriage we’re doing away with, there’s one my partner and I have accidentally kept, albeit in a new context: “something borrowed”. Almost everything our guests saw or indirectly engaged with at our wedding served as a reminder of the unique intimacy you foster with a stranger; when kindness exists only for kindness’ sake. And now that our wedding is over and done, we are looking forward to packing it all up and returning the favour.

• Kat Patrick is a journalist and author of children’s books