The Wedding Blog

No, J and I aren’t having another wedding. That would be self indulgent. We will, however, tie the knot in City Hall just to have an actual marriage license and legal recognition. We did decide to start a wedding blog because I like to talk about weddings and J wants a place to give handy tips on how to plan a wedding. This will be a place to talk about all things weddings. Details from our own wedding. Weddings we’ve been to. TV shows about weddings. Books about weddings. Magazines about weddings.

So to start with, we’re a same-gender couple. That makes our view of weddings a bit more unconventional and a bit more on the do-it-yourself side. We had a queer, Quaker, fragrance-free, Vietnamese, feminist, Texan, barbecue, Pan-Asian wedding. We had a year and a half to plan and did as much as we could ourselves without actually being forced to cook or clean on the day of the wedding. Miraculously all of our vendors and helpers came right on time. We had food brought in from two places – Rockland’s Barbecue and Café Asia. The staff of Café Asia was in charge of setting up the food and cleaning everything up afterwards.

We had a Clearness Committee at our Monthly Meeting guide us through the spiritual aspects of getting married and BEING married within the Religious Society of Friends. This meant talking to us about how we defined marriage and how we would take care of each other as a married couple. It also meant they would be giving direction to us about the ceremony.

We invited around 200 people and exactly 99 showed up for the ceremony and an additional 20 showed up for the reception. We had our wedding over MLK Jr. weekend which was also the weekend of the anti-war protests so we couldn’t be too pissed off that a few folks had to skip the ceremony. They were fighting for peace!

You’ll hear more about the blessed day but for now just know it was a blast and everyone (to our knowledge) had a good time.

Starting
So you all have made the decision to have a wedding. This is different from getting married which doesn’t necessarily involved guests, food, or even a ceremony. But if you want to have a wedding, starting is the fun part.

So to begin, close your eyes. Think about what your wedding will be like. What does it look like to you? A big buffet of gourmet food? A vision of you in your outfit and your prospective spouse in theirs? A few close friends and family? Tons of people dancing and tipsy? This is the daydreaming part.

As you think about your dream wedding here are some things to think about:

Formality – So what will the guy wear? A suit and tie? A white shirt and linen pants? A tux? A morning suit? This is what sets the tone for the wedding guests. Will this be an evening wedding where you envision evening gowns? Or an afternoon outdoor wedding on the beach? Whatever it is, your level of formality will set the tone for many other things. It’s really important as your send your invitations to make the level of formality clear. Our friends Becky and Suzanne had a flip flop theme and made sure everyone knew that the brides would be married in flip flops. J and I wore khakis, button down shirts and flip flops and we matched the tone of the event perfectly.

What’s important – If you are on a budget, you can’t have it all so think about what’s important. For us it was the good time as opposed to the aesthetics. While our decorations were nice, they were minimal. We did prioritize getting a good music list, a good swing band, and good food. We also made sure to hire a caterer who really knew what they were doing. Other folks may want to make really great memories and a beautiful ceremony which means a lot of money on flowers and accessories. Others may want really important people to be there for them and help subsidize their travel. Either way it a choice.

How much money do you have? – No seriously. Do you want your parents involved? How much are you willing to max out the credit cards? Come up with that number and don’t assume anyone’s parents are going to make a magical donation at the last minute. (I only say this because there was a Bridezilla style show on Oxygen where a spoiled girl wanted an upgrade on EVERYTHING and just told the vendors her parents would pay for it.)

So what about the rest of you? What were the things you had to think about in planning your wedding?