This is a real-life tale that ends with a happy ending, but in the mountains of obstacles that its protagonists have overcome, it teaches us that it has been worth the years of struggle to remember that human rights, like love, belong to all people.  

Subachoque, 17 August 2019. Isabella Soto and Lina Mosquera dressed as brides. In the background, Socio (the mascot), friends, friends and family being witnesses of this legacy: Love is the simplest and the most rebellious. The greatest and the most fragile. Love is love in all its expressions and as a miracle it must be respected, expressed and shared. Love to share half of the bed, half a beer, a bite of that, 3/4 of the blanket, a corner of the pillow, a ray of sunlight.

It was a spiritual ritual that sealed the union as woman and woman. An event that made official the marriage proposal that came as a surprise, but longed for, inside a huge box with a balloon that said: will you marry me, and an answer from life to tell Isabella that she was wrong when she thought that marriage was not for her.

"If you asked me some time ago if I dreamed of getting married I would answer a dry NO with a whiff of arrogance that only hid a "I can't". I can't because I'm not brave, I can't because what if my family is not there with me? I would have to tell everyone and then I'd better... I don't want to. That way it sounds easier, safer", recalls this Cali-born woman who today thanks all those who fought so that "we could all be ladies".

Beyond having the right to marry as an expression of love and the desire to share a life together, Isabella and Lina's ceremony also came to reaffirm the marriage as a blanket of rights they agreed to before the notary on July 8, 2019, which they assumed would be a simple process considering that it had been three years since equal marriage in Colombia had been approved by the Constitutional Court, but no, it was not.

"After the third notary's office where we were told that the agendas were full and there was no availability, I began to suspect that something was wrong. I told Lina my perception and she told me to go in alone to ask for a marriage and then to clarify that it was a union of two women. Unfortunately, we found that the agendas were full, but with discrimination, not appointments," Isabella recalls.

As if the years of struggle that LGBT people have had to face in Colombia, and still face in many countries around the world, to assert the right that by law is for everyone, had not been enough, there are still notaries with full agendas to marry lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender couples and officials who act under their own will, and who close the doors to equality and rights.

"The right is for everyone. Whoever wants or needs access to it has the whole path that the community has forged over years of struggle. Let us always seek the respect, love and treatment we deserve as human beings. Respect that allowed Isabella and Lina to overcome obstacles in the way of wedding planning, such as understanding that the lady at the bridal store blushed when she assumed they were best friends who were getting married in a double wedding, that the locations are not prepared to serve two brides at the same time, and that the suppliers saw the wedding as an extraordinary event.

This year, the Cali-Bogota couple will celebrate two years of marriage, two years of having celebrated a wedding like any other, no more, no less. "With the firm conviction that one day we will be so visible that we will go unnoticed and be able to share with the world that nothing bad comes from love, that when we understand who we are we understand that it doesn't matter what others think, and that we need to be seen, understood and accepted as subjects of rights": Isabella.

Parenthesis: heterosexual brides can get married in trousers and lesbians in dresses. It's legal under "the law of style" to get married in whatever colours you want. Oh, and men can wear dresses too!

This is one of the many love stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who want and have wanted to get married and who today can claim this just right. It is one of thousands of love stories of same-sex couples that we wanted to highlight on the occasion of the five years since the Constitutional Court reiterated and ratified that equal marriage in Colombia had already been approved since 2013.

This struggle was not easy, many couples were subjected to pain, to frustration, to the anger of hearing that for many their love was "not worth it", as if love had a manual. But although this struggle was full of obstacles, the battles fought by many activists in the country make this a reality today, that getting married is not just a dream.

Today we celebrate a joint achievement between activists, human rights organisations and couples who overcame diverse and hard difficulties and overcame infinite NO! so that every 28 April we can proudly shout that equal marriage YES! is possible in Colombia, more than that, it is our right, our choice.