“By the power vested in me by all the stardust in the cosmos, the whole Outside Lands community and the State of California, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may seal your marriage with a kiss.”
The officiant, Brian Fiore-Silfvast, stood behind the couple, who were holding hands under an arbor in a eucalyptus grove in Golden Gate Park. All pretty normal as weddings go — until you realize it’s taking place inside a 250,000-person, multiday music festival with intoxicated fans wearing a lot of neon, vendors selling bacon flights and a designated cannabis zone.
The couple, Southern California residents Alek and Mia Martinez, did as instructed by the officiant, giving each other a modest but passionate smooch. Seated on log benches, a small crowd of witnesses (plus several journalists and an assortment of randos) cheered, blowing bubbles out of toy guns with their phones aloft. Nearby, on the festival’s Panhandle stage, British singer-songwriter Valencia Grace could be heard wrapping up her first-of-the-weekend set.
So how did the newlyweds feel?
Wearing a beige, ankle-length cottagecore dress she found at a Savers thrift store in Los Angeles, Mia Martinez could barely respond. “I’m super happy,” she said through tears.
The Martinezes were among 20 couples who have chosen to get married this weekend at Outside Lands. They were the second to tie the knot Friday at 12:30 p.m., only 90 minutes after the gates opened.
As a nod to the 20th anniversary of the “Winter of Love” — that brief period in 2004 when San Francisco same-sex couples could briefly wed — the festival has debuted a “City Hall” experience, in which couples with pre-bought wristbands and pre-secured marriage licenses pay an additional $349 for a 15-minute ceremony that comes with a photographer, officiant, decorations and access to a pre-ceremony lounge, plus two drink tokens for good measure.
The Martinezes met in 2017 in New Mexico, and they’d been engaged for about a year. At one point, they lived in the East Bay city of Richmond. This is their third Outside Lands together — Alek’s fourth overall — and they’re particularly excited to see the Killers, Friday night’s headliner.
They brought a few people to celebrate their special day. “My parents, her mom, my brother, my aunt and her best friend since second grade,” Alek said, ticking them off on his fingers. He wasn’t counting the smattering of curious onlookers who had paused to watch, some openly wondering if this was an actual ceremony, a marketing stunt or what. “Is this real?” a woman in her 20s practically shouted, hustling to the Sutro stage with her squad.
Officiant Fiore-Silfvast is a brand strategist living in Seattle who has worked for years at Outside Lands in one capacity or another. Prior to this weekend, he’d presided over seven weddings in four states as an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church. (It’s free, online.) Assuming nobody gets cold feet this weekend, he is scheduled to unite another 40 people in matrimonial bliss by the time Sturgill Simpson takes the Lands End stage Sunday night.
Having a stranger marry you, in public, in what amounts to a matrimonial assembly line, is probably not for everyone. However, Fiore-Silfvast, who wrote the ceremony, is taking his sacred duty seriously. At least once during the Martinezes’ ceremony, his voice warbled with emotion.
He tries to spend at least a few minutes with each couple before they take their turn under the arbor. “I have not gotten to know them very personally. Just for a very brief minute,” Fiore-Silfvast said. Still, “this is the honor of a lifetime.”
