Last week's snow has melted, but I want to tell you something about it.

My partner, Tina, and I went to Vancouver, British Columbia, over spring break and got married. We'd been talking about it for a while, and the school recess gave us the opportunity to make it happen. Although our church in Milwaukee will gladly marry us, it wouldn't be legal here in the U.S. and somehow that paper recognition is important.

In Vancouver, it's already spring. We were there for almost a week and it never got below 40 degrees (or 5, as they say up there, eh?). There were flowers everywhere -- tulips, daffodils, hibiscus, azaleas, rhododendrons, and more. The whole city was one big florist's shop, showing up the wedding bouquets I had carefully ordered in advance.

We were married by a minister of the United Church of Canada who happens to be a legally wed lesbian and co-chair of Affirm United, the LGBT concerns division of the church. A legally married lesbian couple from the congregation, Rita and Colleen, were our witnesses and, until the event, strangers to us who nevertheless welcomed us with extravagant hospitality.

After the ceremony, our hired photographer showed us around town, posing us in picturesque settings along the waterfront and in the beloved Stanley Park. As we joyfully maneuvered the busy sidewalks of Vancouver with our matching bouquets, locals stepped up to congratulate us and wish us well. Some U.S. tourists gawked and I learned a new Spanish word for "dyke" from a Latino family in the park, but for the most part we were greeted in the indulgent way newlyweds typically are.

Embraced in the Christian love of the local church community, congratulated by strangers in the park, happily holding the hand of my new wife, I still felt alone somehow. My family, including the five children Tina and I have between us, couldn't be there; not only was it beyond our financial means, but new War-on-Terror travel requirements mean that each of them would have needed a rush-ordered passport to come with us to Canada. Our home church family wasn't there, nor our colleagues from work, nor our closest friends. We were alone.

Still, we made the best of it. We wandered Vancouver's neighborhoods and we climbed to the top of Dam Mountain (a surprisingly apt name once you get to 3,500 feet and add an "n"). We ate at a sushi bar where you choose your meal from little wooden boats that float by on an artificial stream. We bought saris in the Punjabi Market. We drifted among the methadone clinic clients on Hastings Street and among the high-and-mighty downtown.

So, about the snow. It was hard to leave the place where we were married. It was hard to choose to go back home where no legal authority will recognize that we have made this commitment to each other. It was hard to leave spring for the snow.

The icy blast first hit us when we were at the U.S. customs station in the Vancouver airport. Carrying our long-suffering bouquets, we filled out a single customs form because the instructions indicated that one form must be filled out per family. We stepped up to the counter and the steely eyed customs guy took our form and asked us what we did in Canada. Tina cheerfully said, "We got married." And Mr. Steely Eye said, "We don't recognize that in the United States of America," and without giving us a chance to fill out separate forms, he told us to go to Line 2, the "document deficiency line," the line where suspected illegal immigrants go.

If I thought the last customs guy had a steely eye, well, the guy at Line 2 had a titanium eye. Titanium Guy dealt with me, the Mexican-American; Tina got the nice lady in Line 4. Titanium Guy ignored me for a couple of minutes, talking to his co-worker about what was on TV that night. Then he asked for my passport and began looking me up in the computer. "What were you doing in Canada?" he asked in that I-got-something-on-ya posture that people in uniforms often adopt, leaning back casually in his chair and squinting at me. I gave him my own version of the steely eye, paused a moment, and said, "Vacation," drawing out the three syllables so he had time to fill in the blanks. "Huh," he said, "So you live in Salinas?" I told him I'd lived in Wisconsin or Illinois all my life. "Morales. That's a Hispanic name, isn't it? Where did your people come from?" he continued. "My Morales grandfather was from Mexico," I responded. "Yeah, so from Mexico City, right?" he fished. "No," I said, "From Guanajuato." After a few more questions, by which he gave me the uncomfortably clear impression that my story was totally unbelievable, he passed me on to the agriculture inspector who wanted to know where we got those palm leaves in our bouquets.

Somehow the words to "Winter Wonderland" kept coming to mind as we touched down in Milwaukee, with the piles of snow on the edges of the runways: In the meadow we can build a snowman and pretend that he is Parson Brown. He'll say, "Are you married?" We'll say, "No, man, but you can do the job when you're in town."

No, wait, he can't. We have to go to his town, his country, because our town doesn't know love when it sees it.

After our marriage ceremony, after the minister announced that our relationship was recognized by the Sovereign Country of Canada, Rita and Colleen hugged us tightly and told us to go home and be witnesses to change in the U.S.

So, here we are, Tina and I, wives to each other. Witness us.