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Overview
This updated edition to the classic planner is “a chatty, humorous compendium of traditions, advice, and wedding details geared for same-sex couples” (Publishers Weekly).
Wedding planning is never easy—but for gay and lesbian couples, it presents unique challenges. On top of watching the budget and wrangling your family, you may be wondering: How should we word the invitations? Who can perform the ceremony? What should we say to those who ask, “ . . . why?”
This trusty guide—first published when legal same-sex marriage was just a dream—tackles all that and more. Here are tips on finding the perfect venue, vows, outfits, cake, kit, and caboodle, as well as:
- Creative workarounds (Have you considered a home wedding?)
- Budget-friendly shortcuts (Supplement the tiered cake with a sheet cake.)
- The latest trends (How to buck the traditions that don’t work for you.)
- And sage wisdom, with a wink! (Rule #1: If you invite them, they may come!)
If you’d rather stay crazy about each other than go crazy, The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings—filled with “witty, wise, and practical advice”—is for you (Library Journal).
“All you need is love—and this book—to have a great wedding.” —Melissa Etheridge, musician and LGBT activist
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781615191512 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Experiment |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 288 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Paul Brown has a BA in theater arts from Harpur College, Binghamton University. Over the years he has worked in theater (treasured every moment), a bit in television (not so much), and a stint in “celebrity journalism” (seemed like a good idea at the time). For the past fifteen years, Brown has taught Special Education in Los Angeles. He met Tess Ayers several months before her wedding over two decades ago (then called a “commitment ceremony”). When the honeymoon was over, they collaborated on the first version of The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings. Currently, Brown is working on a vocabulary and reading comprehension program for students with learning differences. He has never been married himself but he sure knows how to plan a wedding.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Why Bother (Especially Where It's Not Legal)?
At some point in our lifetime, gay marriage won't be an issue, and everyone who stood against this civil right will look as outdated as George Wallace standing on the school steps keeping James Hood from entering the University of Alabama because he was black.
— GEORGE CLOONEY, on California's anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment
ONCE UPON A time, there were two women who fell in love. They lived together for a few years, and then one night, one of them got down on one knee (we think it was her left one) and asked the other one to marry her. The following June they went down to city hall and got a marriage license, and then they had a huge church wedding, wearing long bridal gowns with trains. They had eight attendants in matching fuchsia dresses, and three hundred guests. At the reception that followed (paid for by both sets of parents), each bride danced with her new mother-in-law and father- in-law, and both were toasted by various friends and relatives. This was all announced in the "Weddings" section in the local newspaper. Soon afterward, each became eligible for the other's health insurance, and the following year they filed a joint tax return.
* * *
Once, this was pure fairy tale; now, thankfully, it is not entirely a fantasy. Although same-sex couples have been celebrating their unions in various ways for centuries, today, the events in this "fairy tale" are happening with frequency all over the country and the world. True, in most states, gays and lesbians cannot get a marriage license, but in some, you can and in others, you may be able to soon. And clearly there's no reason to avoid making a public commitment, as hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples have demonstrated in recent decades.
And while this book is designed to help you plan your wedding, before we deal with the wedding part, let's talk about the issue of why same-sex couples would want to be married in the first place. Anyone can have a wedding, but if you're not legally married, why bother? Does the pursuit of marriage rights reduce us to little more than heterosexual wannabes? And as a heterosexual institution, isn't marriage under attack from all sides? Let's hit rewind and take a look at its history.
It all began with cavemen claiming their brides or stealing them from other tribes, with marriage gradually evolving into its own little cottage industry, and the bride's father negotiating her price. (In fact, this is the origin of the word we still use for the celebration; in Anglo-Saxon society the groom was required to give a "wed" of money, goods, or domestic animals in exchange for a bride. Festive, huh?) Then in medieval times, along came St. Augustine to suggest that mutual agreement just might be a better foundation for a marriage than stealing or bartering. The idea of romantic love didn't really catch on until the eighteenth century, but even then, if the relationship soured, people often stayed married for economic or social reasons — marriages of convenience.
In the twenty-first century a lot of the rules have changed, yet the bonds of matrimony undeniably remain a centerpiece of Western civilization's social structure.
If the Club Won't Have Us as Members, Why Would We Want to Join?
When you add the history of gays into the mix of the history of marriage, and begin to talk about gay marriage, you're sitting on a powder keg, as we have seen in many of the political and religious stands taken over the years. There are several emotionally charged issues at play here, both within the gay community and in society as a whole.
First of all, there is the concept of marriage itself. There are those who maintain that marriage is a convention that has not weathered well over time, and that the word marriage comes with too much baggage, including undesirable and outdated concepts such as "ownership," and expectations of a picture-perfect existence à la Donna Reed. One can argue that today's through-the-roof divorce rate (hovering above 40 percent in the U.S.) is proof that marriage as an institution has not treated men or women very kindly.
Well, why can't lesbians and gays take the best parts of what marriage has to offer and discard the rest? It's been observed that many gay relationships are more egalitarian than heterosexual relationships; just granting us the right to marry doesn't mean we'll have to lower our standards.
And consider the question of same-sex marriage as a political issue. Some wonder, after years of being unaccepted (even damned) by society, why gays and lesbians would want to participate in an archaic tradition that has "straight world" stenciled all over it. By entering into gay marriages, are gays engaged in a misdirected attempt to adopt traditional heterosexual institutions for themselves instead of encouraging divergent lifestyles? After all, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have kids together and choose not to get married; why shouldn't gays do the same?
The response to this concern is that gays should fight for marriage laws because they offer a certain road to complete equality. Nobody's saying that if you're allowed to get married, that you have to get married, but until lesbians and gays have exactly the same legal rights as heterosexuals, we will always be second-class citizens. (As the bumper sticker says, "Separate but Equal is not Equal.") Gay cohabitation is legal in almost every state; by denying same-sex couples the choice to legally wed, society is encouraging those relationships to be insecure and taken less seriously.
And finally there's the issue of lesbians and gays seeking the right to validate their unions from asociety that is often resistant to change. The notion of legalizing same-sex marriage challenges the morals and insecurities of the status quo. Acknowledging a committed gay relationship and saying that it is just as valid and acceptable as a nongay relationship just plain scares the hell out of some people. You hear this today in the idea that using the word marriage for gays and lesbians somehow diminishes the institution of marriage for all heterosexuals.
Well, even a reluctant social structure can adapt. President Obama's parents could not legally marry in almost one-third of the states when he was born — because they were of different races. Someday, society will find it just as incredible that at one time two people of the same sex were not entitled to legally marry. And, in the meantime, Brad and Angelina are among many celebrity couples who have chosen not to get married until everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able.
Birds Do It, Bees Do It
While there are any number of important political reasons to support legal marriage among same-sex couples, we like to think that straight people and gay people alike get married for pretty much the same reason: love. And love and commitment are so rare in this world that it seems absurd to stonewall them.
So how popular are love and commitment? The Human Rights Campaign estimates that there are well over 3 million U.S. gays and lesbians who are in committed relationships and sharing the same residence. This figure tends to surprise Middle America, because it wasn't long ago that the media depicted a more sensationalized version of gay life. Gays and lesbians were thought to exist mainly at night, in bars and private clubs. As Martin, who had a union ceremony with his lover of six years, told us, "In the old days, there were no role models to hold up as solid gay relationships." Being gay was something to keep secret. It was "a lifestyle," and it was always as far away from straight America as possible.
But as Harvey Fierstein has said, "Gay liberation should not be a license to be a perpetual adolescent. If you deny yourself commitment, then what can you do with your life?" After decades of free love and living for the moment, many straight couples are now choosing to nest, as are gays and lesbians. The C word — Commitment — is on the comeback trail for a number of reasons, including the increase in lesbian and gay parenting and a concern for safe sex. But perhaps the most important reason is that the fight for advances in LGBT civil rights is bringing awareness and newfound determination to many. The result? The confidence to march out of the closet and down the aisle.
A consultant to the U.S. Census Bureau estimated there were approximately 100,000 official same-sex marriages, civil unions, and domestic partnerships in 2008. Although these numbers are difficult to accurately gauge, what we do know is that public same-sex commitment, in whatever form it takes, is increasing exponentially every year. There are religious ceremonies in churches and temples, ceremonies performed by clergy who bless the unions but cannot sanction them under the laws of their church, and thousands of "civil" ceremonies that are not reported to anyone at all except supportive friends and family. All over the country, in banquet halls, on cruise ships, and in national parks, guys and guys and gals and gals are saying, "I do," tossing bouquets, and driving off in Priuses.
Ask Not for Whom the Wedding Bell Tolls; It Tolls for Thee
Okay, you say, commitment is one thing — but a wedding? Why bother? Because we humans love to mark milestones with celebrations. From a baptism to a sweet-sixteen party to a retirement party, we take stock of our lives with rituals. By planning a wedding ceremony, you are participating in an age-old rite that honors the purest and most basic union between two people. A wedding is part of a universal language that says, "turning point," and as human beings we need to feel we're a part of the pageant of history.
* * *
I feel there is a truth to the idea that when you commit in a ceremony, legal or otherwise, your subconscious adjusts to the fact that you're committed for life to this person. Gay people always have an out, just as straight people living together do. Why do we look with awe at a gay couple in their sixties who have been together for thirty years? It's a rarity in our world. Part of that is because there's no marriage.
— Ellie
Weddings also offer the couple a sense of emotional security. When we asked Randy if getting married changed him, he said, "Not the next day, but over the years I felt the importance of having a ceremony. We had made such a public commitment to each other, the few times we've had trouble, it wasn't so easy to just walk away from Joe."
And guess what? Getting married is a lot of fun! Almost every couple we spoke with talked about what a great time they had on their wedding day, calling it one of the high points of their lives. Sounds like a pretty good deal to us.
IT'S COMPANY POLICY
The following businesses, organizations, and corporations are among the thousands across the United States that offer benefits for their same-gender domestic partners.
American Express Apple Computer, Inc.
What to Answer When Your Mother Asks, "Why in the World Would You Want to do That? It's Not Legal."
Choose one or more of the following responses:
* "We've entered into a relationship that is too big and too meaningful to deny."
* "It's a celebration of our lives together."
* "If Cousin Bernice can get married, why can't I?"
* "We're formalizing our relationship to the outside world."
* "We want to raise a family, and we'd never consider having children unless we were married."
* "We want to create an occasion to gather the diverse people who are important in both of our lives."
* "I'm expressing to my partner the ultimate in commitment and responsibility."
* "We're participating in an age-old tradition."
* "I'm making a political statement."
* "We're doing this to hurt you."
You Can Say "I Do," But the Law Still Usually Says "You Don't"
Currently, only seven states plus Washington, D.C., issue licenses to same- sex couples, and Maryland, New Jersey, and Rhode Island recognize marriages from those states. So before you start making your guest list and hyphenating your last names, remember that you will probably continue to lose out on a number of benefits that your cousin Bernice automatically received when she got married.
The number of federal rights and responsibilities that come with marriage has been tallied at over 1,100, but due to the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, you don't get any of those. (Yet.) Other perks vary from state to state, and include employee benefit-plan coverage (health insurance, bereavement leave, pension plans), joint income-tax filing, Social Security survivors benefits, reduction of estate taxes, visitation rights, child- custody rights, tenancy rights, conservator-ship, reduced auto and homeowners' insurance rates, community property, and even jurisprudence (if Bernice's hubby robs a Starbucks, she can't be forced to testify against him). All this because Bernice married Don and not Donna.
Some of these benefits are granted to same-sex partners in some states under the name of domestic partnerships or civil unions. In certain states such as Oregon, domestic partnership is almost equivalent to marriage. Depending on the specific situation, domestic partnership can qualify you for anything from taking over a rent-stabilized apartment lease to sharing in your significant other's dental insurance policy. In other cases, domestic partnership is purely symbolic, and people sign up for political or emotional reasons.
Struck by a Thunderbolt
We can cite Kinsey till the cows come home, but statistics just never get the point across the way stories do. Here are a few personal insights into the decision to get married:
George and David knew each other a year and a half before getting married in the Church of Religious Science, with eighty guests in attendance.
I didn't know the moment we met, but almost from the time we met ... I knew that this is the man I want to grow old with and spend the rest of my life with and all that corny stuff that you hear. I can't really explain it, but I knew it.
— George
Joe and Randy moved in together and exchanged wedding rings soon after they met. They had a union ceremony on the fifth anniversary of their first date and have been together for almost twenty-five years.
If someone were to ask me what was the best day of my life, it would be the wedding day. Maybe it's because of the planning that goes into it. For three months you didn't think of anything else, so there's that anticipation. We had the white tuxes, we had the bouton-nieres, and both of us just looked so great that day. The weather was perfect, the exotic flowers, the view of the coast ... it was the most perfect day.
— Joe
Jane and Peggy had dated for ten years and had lived together for four before they committed to committing.
Look, we figured, we're not getting any younger. We wanted to have some kids and settle down. Having a wedding finally made sense to us.
— Peggy
Both Victoria and Shirley had previously been married to men. Shirley proposed to Victoria after they had been dating for a few months. They had their wedding a year later.
I'd had weddings before but this was the wedding I'd always wanted.
— Victoria
The way I am, I knew when I met her that this was going to be forever. We went to pick out an engagement ring, and when I brought it home, I got down on one knee and said, "Victoria, I love you with all my heart. Will you be my bride?"
— Shirley
In 1996, Connie and Stephanie had a commitment ceremony in their synagogue and a big reception afterward. In 2008, when the California State Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage must be allowed, they decided to have another ceremony.
When we had our first ceremony, we wanted this amazing love sanctified and celebrated in the most powerful way that couples affirm their bond: marriage. And we wouldn't wait for the state's recognition. We had an unforgettable celebration, but missing, of course, was the iconic phrase that usually seals the deal: "By the powers vested in me by the state of California, I now pronounce you ..."
Twelve years later, when the court ruled that the rights, protections, and responsibilities of marriage should be extended to same-sex couples, Stephanie and I knew we had some unfinished business. We wanted that pronouncement from the state, which not only recognized our emotional interdependence but our economic interdependence. And if those rights only lasted for a brief period of time, we would still seize the day — and then fight like hell to get them back.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Essential Guide to Gay and Lesbian Weddings"
by .
Copyright © 2012 Tess Ayers and Paul Brown.
Excerpted by permission of The Experiment Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION,
Part 1: Waxing Philosophical,
ONE: WHY BOTHER? (ESPECIALLY WHERE IT'S NOT LEGAL)?,
TWO: OTHERWISE ENGAGED THE ENGAGEMENT,
THREE: IT'S A STRAIGHT STRAIGHT STRAIGHT STRAIGHT WORLD DEALING WITH THE OTHER 90 PERCENT,
Part 2: Wedding Logistics,
FOUR: AND AWAY WE GO! TAKING ACTION,
FIVE: NUTS AND BOLTS THE BUSINESS OF WEDDINGS,
SIX: TELLING THE WORLD GUESTS AND INVITATIONS,
SEVEN: HERE, THERE, AND EVERYWHERE LOCATIONS,
EIGHT: TRY THIS AT HOME, KIDS HOME WEDDINGS,
NINE: STANDING ON CEREMONY THE WEDDING CEREMONY,
TEN: RING ME UP WEDDING RINGS,
ELEVEN: EAT, DRINK, AND BE MARRIED FOOD AND BEVERAGES,
TWELVE: THE CAKE TAKES THE CAKE THE WEDDING CAKE,
THIRTEEN: RENT CONTROL ALL ABOUT RENTING AND BORROWING,
FOURTEEN: DON WE NOW OUR GAY APPAREL WEDDING ATTIRE,
FIFTEEN: THE FLOWER HOUR FLOWERS,
SIXTEEN: YOUR PRESENCE AND YOUR PRESENTS PARTIES AND GIFTS,
SEVENTEEN: THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT! MUSIC, DANCING, AND OTHER RECEPTION FESTIVITIES,
EIGHTEEN: MEMORIES PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY,
Part 3: The Big Event,
NINETEEN: THE FINAL APPROACH THE WEEK BEFORE THE WEDDING,
TWENTY: ON THE DAY THAT YOU WED WEDDING-DAY DETAILS,
TWENTY-ONE: THE HONEYMOONERS,
TWENTY-TWO: THE AFTERMATH,
RESOURCES,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
INDEX,
ABOUT THE AUTHORS,