Sunday marks three years since same-sex couples in Finland gained the legal right to marry. It was the culmination of a years-long campaign and a citizens’ initiative that drew more than 156,000 signatures, marking a watershed moment for Finnish society.

As the bill passed in parliament on a grey late-November day in 2014, about 5,000 people gathered outside in a celebratory mood. Inside the chamber, MP Sylvia Modig shed tears and lawmakers exchanged light banter. Other MPs were less jubilant. Some said the law would damage children, some said it would lead to marriage between humans and animals. But the law was passed anyway, and now Christian Democrat MP Sari Tanus says it would be ‘a waste of time’ to fight against same-sex marriage.

The amendment to standing marriage laws meant that same-sex marriage became legal in Finland on 1 March 2017. Since then nearly 1,500 couples have tied the knot. Priests performed 85 of these nuptials and another 40 couples received blessings from the clergy, according to unofficial figures collected by Olavi Virtanen, a pastor from Konnevesi, north of Jyväskylä.

One of those same-sex unions was between Lauren Stevens and Maria Riikonen, a Finnish-British couple living in Tampere. Read more via yle