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The air was buzzing with anticipation at Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront on Saturday 26 March 2011, where one of the most captivating gay weddings took place.
This was the finale of an on air reality wedding show presented by Heart 104.9FM in which male contestants could enter and stand a chance to find their soul mate in the Two Guys and a Wedding competition
After an extensive selection process, 35-year-old Lekker Larry was chosen to be the first groom and was faced with deciding between five potential bachelors whom he had never met before. After thorough polygraph and background checks, Lekker Larry finally proposed to 29-year-old Hastige Hendrik, still masked.
Saying "I do"
At the Altar just before saying “I do”, the couple revealed their true identities to one another, with Lekker Larry revealing himself as Lloyd Kandlin, and Hastige Hendrik’s as Shane Everts.
The competition launched in February and was the hottest wedding reality show on SA’s airwaves. The 8-week journey of love and romance unfolded daily for listeners to share in all of the excitement and build up to the wedding day, with some not as excited about it as others.
The wedding served as a celebration of SA’s diversity. It reminded us that in 2006, South Africa became the fifth country in the world to join an elite group of progressive democracies that allow legal same-sex unions. It also served as a reminder that SA is also the first country in Africa and is currently one of the 22 countries out of 195 in the world to recognise same-sex marriage constitutionally.
The competition taught members of society to exercise tolerance toward SA’s LGBTI community, and that gay South Africans too had the right to love and happiness, despite the uproar around the legalisation of civil unions. It has honoured the values and essence of the constitutional right of gay persons to marry by using a wedding as an awareness raising attempt.
Legally married by Reverend Daniel Brits from the African Church, the couple are excited about starting a life together as husband and husband.
(Zaakirah Rossier, Health24, March 2011)
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Pictures supplied by Abigail K Photography
