Kirk Lawrence and Jamie Howard owe a lot to the creator of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch. ”
The pair met in 1998 at a production of the then-new off-Broadway show and, last month, headed back to the Big Apple to tie the knot.
Lawrence, 50, a native of West Lawn, outside of Reading, was managing the box office and website at the Jane Street Theater when Howard, 49, then a sales representative for a high-school yearbook publisher in his home state of Florida, brought a group of clients to see the production.
“I loved the show, and when I got back to Florida I posted on the message board of the website about it, and Kirk said something witty back, and we went back and forth, then emailed each other, then called, and he eventually said he wanted to fly to meet me,” Howard said.
When Lawrence arrived, as opposed to hitting the typical South Florida nightclubs, he suggested they check out a local campground, which sat well with Howard.
“He was overjoyed at that,” Lawrence said. “When you meet someone and you just know they’re the right person for you, that was the case with us.”
The couple kept up a long-distance relationship for about four months until Howard decided to make the move north.
“I always wanted to live in New York and I figured this was a great opportunity,” he said. “For the first time in my life, though, I moved without a job. I had been employed continuously since I was about 8 years old, so it was a big move for me.”
The move turned out to be a successful one, as Howard quickly found a position in the marketing department of a magazine publisher, where he stayed for about nine years.
Lawrence’s work at the theater afforded the couple a unique opportunity: In 2000, they were joined in a commitment ceremony on stage at the Jane Street Theater.
“After I got off work at the theater we were at this restaurant we loved and started kicking around the idea [of a union] and it started as a joke but quickly turned into something serious,” Lawrence said. “Since I was working at the theater, we did it on a dark night and it was pretty amazing. We had a Unitarian Universalist minister, about 125 guests, some amazing entertainment. It was a great night.”
The couple left behind the lights of Times Square in 2008 for Reading to be closer to Lawrence’s parents.
Howard now works as a medical secretary in Wyomissing, and Lawrence serves as co-director of Reading’s Shoestring Productions.
It was Lawrence’s involvement in the theater company that in part motivated last month’s nuptials.
“We already considered ourselves married for the past 12-and-a-half years so we thought there was no real rush to do the whole legal thing,” Lawrence said. “But our theater group recently produced ‘8’ [about California’s marriage-equality case] and, after directing and producing that, it really changed my thought process. I thought that this would be an important move for us both personally and politically.”
Lawrence and Howard headed to the City Clerk’s Office in Manhattan Aug. 10 along with three witnesses for the ceremony.
The couple already exchanged rings at their original commitment ceremony so, in lieu, picked up two rubber ducks in groom outfits from the wedding gift shop, which they exchanged during the ceremony.
Apart from that humorous moment, the couple said the wedding was moving, more so than they even anticipated.
“We both really got caught up in the emotion; it had an emotional weight and power that was quite overwhelming,” Lawrence said. “After we were wed, our officiate said, ‘OK, now that it’s legal in New York, go work on your governor in Pennsylvania.”
Raising awareness is a realistic opportunity for some same-sex couples that get married, Howard added. As the pair goes through the process of changing their last names to Lawrence-Howard, they’ve run into many people they’ve been able to educate.
“There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Howard said. “We went to the driver’s license office to change the names, and the person at the office was very misinformed about the legality of it. Every person that you’re able to educate about the laws adds to the overall impact of the marriage. The 1,138 rights that a heterosexual married couple automatically gets were pretty abstract to me before. Now I see that a heterosexual married couple just has to produce their marriage license and they can get their name changed in five minutes. It’s not like that for us.”
The bond that they’ve forged over the past 14 years can help them surmount any obstacles, the couple said.
Lawrence noted that both he and Howard had spent some time single prior to their meeting, which helped each build confidence and maturity, a notion Howard echoed.
“You become comfortable with yourself as a person and then the universe just sends you someone like this when you’re not expecting it,” he said, noting that both he and his husband approach one another realistically and without pretense. “My friend has a 65-percent rule: If you can stand someone 65 percent of the time, you should be with them. It’s funny but there’s something to be said for that. Nobody’s perfect and you can’t strive for perfection. But we always have had a good sense of humor, and that’s meant a lot. I’m just very happy to be married to such a wonderful person.”
The Lawrence-Howards will celebrate their wedding with a Sept. 7 party, which will also honor Lawrence’s recent 50th birthday, and plan to honeymoon in 2013.
