Kate Lewis and Pat Hendrickson may want to send a thank you card to Tila Tequila.
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The Amazing Race twelfth-season contestants wed on Wednesday at the Ventura, CA County Clerk and Recorder's Office in front of 20 friends and family members, the Ventura County Star reported Thursday.
"Who would ever have thought we would do [The Amazing Race]?" Hendrickson told the Star. "And a year ago, who would ever have thought we would do this?"
Lewis, an Episcopal priest, and Hendrickson, an ordained Episcopal deacon, were the second team eliminated from The Amazing Race's twelfth season last Fall.
While the couple was joined in a blessing ceremony at Saint Augustine by the Sea Episcopal Church in Santa Monica, CA in 2004, according to the Star, the California Supreme Court only dropped its ban on same-sex marriages in May -- opening the door for this week's nuptials.
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Prior to the ban being lifted, Hendrickson and Lewis told the Star they had shown up at the Ventura County Clerk and Recorder's Office on three separate Valentine's Days only to be turned away.
"This is not Valentine's Day," said Lewis as she approached the front counter Wednesday, according to the Star. "They're going to say yes."
As family members and friend took pictures of the couple standing under an arbor decorated with plastic calla lilies, Hendrickson and Lewis exchanged vows and placed gold rings onto each other's fingers before being pronounced "married under the laws of the state of California," the Star reported. They subsequently celebrated at a Mexican restaurant.
"It's our opportunity to normalize it," Lewis told the Star about the civil service, which Hendrickson added differs from a religious ceremony.
"I'm OK with you not accepting who I am," Hendrickson told the Star. "But don't tell me that I have to be something else to have my rights in this country."
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The couple currently resides in Thousand Oaks, CA but are in the process of relocating to Oahu, HI -- where Lewis is vicar at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Kailua, the Star reported. Hendrickson and Lewis have been together for 11 years.
About The Author: Christopher Rocchio