Montana Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the first transgender woman elected to the state’s Legislature, married writer and advocate Erin Reed in a ceremony in Missoula on Saturday.
"What a perfect wedding, my love," Zephyr wrote in a social media post Tuesday. "Every second of that day is etched into my heart forever. And every vow I made—from promising you a gentle love to promising to be a good mom to our son—will be at the center of all I do."
The couple walked down the aisle to a string quartet's rendition of "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service, and Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, an LGBTQ media advocacy organization, officiated.
"When it came time for my vows, I opened my book and let my heart spill out," Reed wrote in her newsletter. "I spoke of all the reasons I love Zooey — the way her love deepens in adversity, how her beautiful eyes subtly shift color with her emotions, her playfulness and sincerity, and the way her feet instinctively find the rhythm to every song. I shared how my son has grown to love her too, how she transforms everyday moments into magical adventures for him, and how much that means to me. I promised her a love that feels like home, a love that feels like family. I promised her forever, in every sense of the word."
They celebrated with friends and family after a ceremony at the Missoula County Fairgrounds — the same place where they got engaged during a Queer Prom event in May 2023.
Attendees included a number of well-known trans people, including Lilly Wachowski, who directed the first three “Matrix” films with her sister Lana Wachowski; Lia Thomas, the first trans woman to win an NCAA championship; and Colorado state Rep. Brianna Titone, the first trans woman elected to the state’s Legislature.
The couple met in the spring of 2022 while on calls with other activists to organize in response to Texas initiating investigations into the parents of trans minors, they told NBC News last year.
Since then, they have both become nationally recognized advocates in the LGBTQ community. Zephyr drew international attention after she was censured in the Montana Legislature last year, and Reed, who is based in Maryland, has become a prominent voice in the trans community through her newsletter, Erin In the Morning, where she covers trans rights.
Reed said she fell in love with Zephyr in part because she is so easy to talk to. When the pair first started dating, they wrote out a list of questions divided into four categories: sweet, silly, spicy and serious. They would roll a four-sided dice commonly used in a tabletop role-playing game they both love, Dungeons and Dragons, to determine which category they’d select a question from. They played the game for months until they ran out of questions, they told NBC News last year.
“I’m a bit of a night owl, and my favorite times of the day were that midnight period where I was just laying in bed talking to her until we fell asleep,” Reed said last year. “I fell in love with just talking to her.”
