Couple make history as they tie the knot in first same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland

A Belfast couple have described making history as the first same-sex couple to tie the knot in Northern Ireland as "surreal".

Robyn Peoples, 26, and Sharni Edwards, 27, got married in a hotel in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, on Tuesday afternoon, after a landmark law change in the country coincided with the couple's sixth anniversary.

They had booked a civil partnership ceremony at the Loughshore hotel months before Westminster MPs passed the legislation last summer.

When it became clear the first marriages could take place in Northern Ireland this week, they changed their ceremony to a wedding.

After a long and high-profile campaign for reform, same-sex marriage was eventually legalised at Westminster by MPs who stepped in and acted on the controversial issue during the powersharing impasse at Stormont.

As the couple basked in their newly-wed status, Sharni said: "It's completely surreal.

"We are literally living the dream, it's incredible."

Robyn, a senior care worker from Belfast, added: "For Northern Ireland we need to be the face of the people to show everyone it's OK. We fought so long and hard for this opportunity to be seen as equal and now we are here and it's just amazing."

They also paid tribute to the LGBTQ activists who had campaigned for the law change. Sharni said: "If it wasn't for them guys we wouldn't be sat here right now, we just want to say thank you to everyone... everyone who has marched and signed petitions, everyone who has helped us get to this stage, we just want to say thank you."

The couple's married name is Edwards-Peoples.

Robyn described the significance of the occasion: "It's just to show that we are equal to a man and a woman, our love is just the same, it's no different.

"Sometimes people might try to say it's not. Our love is the exact same, and this means everything to us.

"Now we are married and we have this opportunity - this is my wife, I can finally say she is my wife and we have had our marriage."

Sharni added: "It's amazing."

Sara Canning, the partner of murdered journalist Lyra McKee, said adding her voice to those calling for the landmark law change had been "massively helpful" to the grieving process.

"It has been massively helpful to channel my feelings into this, because the alternative was lying down under it, or allowing the anger to be used in a way that isn't constructive," she told the PA news agency.

"At least, speaking out about these things, it's something that can be changed. And the platform was huge, because it was such an awful tragedy.

"So I felt the need was there to speak about something, that maybe a difference could be made.

"And we could see something that Lyra and I were passionate about coming to fruition."

Ms Canning is attending a celebratory Parliamentary event in Westminster on Tuesday evening, alongside the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, MPs and campaigners.

Prior to the ceremony, Sharni, a waitress from Brighton who did not even know the law was different in Northern Ireland until she moved to Belfast from England, added: “We feel humbled that our wedding is a landmark moment for equal rights in Northern Ireland.

"We didn’t set out to make history – we just fell in love."

Additional reporting by PA Media