By Lori L. Lake and Tairi Blair

The first Portland Sage Singers concert in June 2025 came with an unexpected bonus: it doubled as a wedding week event for Kristan Burkert and Eve Sepulveda. On Wednesday evening, they stood before one hundred friends and family at Rose City Park Presbyterian Church. The next night, many of those loved ones joined the audience for the choir’s debut concert. The wedding had long been planned, and they were grateful there wasn’t a concert tech rehearsal that conflicted with their date.

Despite stressful and busy preparations for nearly simultaneous events, “It all turned out great,” Kristan recalled. “Both events were a huge blessing. Friends and family came from everywhere.” In addition to a large contingent of local attendees, guests traveled from Florida, New Mexico, Minnesota, California, Canada, and Eve’s hometown of Buffalo, New York.

The most moving moment for Eve came when her brothers arrived from Buffalo. When Eve originally asked her family to attend the wedding and concert, she discovered they didn’t even know she sang. “My youngest brother said, ‘Just tell me when, and I’ll be there.’ My other brother had never been to anything related to me being gay and seemed a little unsure at first, but his wife said, ‘Don’t be silly. Of course we’re going to your sister’s wedding!’”

The roots of this celebration stretch back to the Portland Lesbian Choir (PLC) in 2023, where the two first met. Kristan, now turning seventy, has been singing her whole life, beginning in church choirs, and continuing through ministry and city government careers.

Eve, now sixty-five, describes herself as “always a jock.” She grew up in Buffalo and moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2017 to work with the Department of Veterans Affairs. She had never sung in a choir until she joined PLC. As a bass—and now a tenor with the Sage Singers—she found not just music but lesbian community in Portland.

Early on, Kristan remembers the two of them acknowledging “a spark with potential.” That bond deepened quickly. Eve nearly accepted a new work position in California, but she decided to remain in Vancouver when negotiations stalled. And because Kristan was a bigger draw.

“We’ve both been around long enough to know a good thing when you find it,” Kristan said. Eve added, “We don’t have to mold ourselves for the other—yet we still love one another.”

Their wedding guests got a joyful encore at the concert the next night when the newlyweds joined in dancing to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” Eve said, “Our friends saw us dancing and cheered.”

For this couple, love and music move together in perfect time, a reflection of the Portland Sage Singers’ spirit of harmony, resilience, and joy. Sometimes the old saying is true: Good things come to those who wait. Especially when singing is involved.