So You're EnGAYged

So as I previously mentioned, we are having a weekend of fun for our wedding. On Friday, we will be feeding everyone pizza, beer, and cupcakes (cupcakes mainly because I want to make cupcake flags). For entertainment, I picture lawn games (bocce, croquet, bowling), a roaring fire pit, and people swimming in the pool.

I still need to figure out what utensils we need, how we are getting trash cans, what table we are using for cupcakes and drinks, and how we are going to light the lawn games after dark. Also since the tent will be dressed up for the reception, and right next to the Friday party, how can I prevent people seeing the inside of the tent the night before?

This is the back patio of the house, which also faces the field, the fire pit, and the tent. I am thinking about putting the kegs here. Maybe we will also put some smaller tables here, so there is somewhere other than your lap to put your pizza.

photo via me

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Ok, when these images showed up in my email box, I did squeal a little. They are that good.

Tara McMullen, their photographer, was the genius behind these photos:

“We shot these in Toronto, ON Canada in the downtown area — specifically Queen West. Taunya + Jess are getting married next June, and are two are the coolest and kindest people I know. Their vibe is super laid-back and a little bit bad-ass (as you can see from the images).”

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As we are young and J is in law school, the majority of our friends don’t have a lot of extra cash and since we live in DC, going up to Vermont is an expensive trip. Hubbell comes with 5 bedrooms, one of them will be for us, one for our photographer, and 3 for friends. The house closest to the tent has two rooms on top which will be quieter than the other house, which is why J, the photographer, and I will be staying in that one. The third house has 3 bedrooms for 5 people. However, there is another empty room upstairs and a lot of floor space for sleeping bags, as well as several couches downstairs. I think having as many people as possible stay with us is a good idea, because if all our friends are sleeping on the property, we won’t have to worry about drunk driving afterwords. Also since there is a lot of field space, I think people could probably set up tents, though I have to double check with the site.

My one concern is that a house full of 20-somethings will turn into a frat house, which I don’t want for our wedding, especially if they make a big mess that we have to pay to clean afterwords.

Bedroom #1

photo via me

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Rev. Joe Glentz, a U.S. Army veteran, is one of the few midwest vendors on our list, so I was excited to feature him today!

Please tell us a little bit about your business.

I am a nondenominational wedding officiant and I perform wedding ceremonies that the couples I work with prefer. I meet with them in person or through the net and phone calls to put together a ceremony that they would like, whether it is religious, non religious or spiritual in its own way. No matter the reason that couples come to me, I am just glad that I can help them out on one of the happiest days of their lives.

What do you love about what you do?

I like meeting new people, visiting new places and seeing the many varied ways that couples like to celebrate their wedding day. (more…)

Despite all the joy I feel to be planning our second wedding in my hometown in California, the event and location feels intertwined in California’s recent legal history and the passage of Prop 8. This is a whole mixed bag of emotions that I am guessing many of you feel and are dealing with or incorporating into your own wedding planning.

For me, our California wedding is an educational and political opportunity as much as a celebration of our love and committment to one another. As part of that, Alex and I are going to make white knots for all our guests to wear for our ceremony and reception.

If you don’t know, the white knot is the symbol for marriage equality. I saw it first on TV at one awards show or another where a bunch of celebrities were wearing them (Oscar’s and Harvey Milk, I think…) but you can read all about it over at WhiteKnot.org

You can also find a handy-dandy White Knot kit! Of course, you could buy your own supplies and DIY-it, but this way your proceeds are going straight (queer?) to the fight for marriage equality.

White Knot Kit, Image from WhiteKnot.org

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I’ve been thinking lately about names.  At least part of this started with that terrifying story of the woman who was hospitalized in south Florida while getting onto a cruise and whose partner and children were denied access to her bedside by the hospital staff.  I want to know the best way to deal with a situation like that in case, god forbid, it ever happens to us.  Would having the same name be some sort of get-in-free card smoothing confused staff members into believing that we really are related before they get a chance to discriminate?  What if it was a child who was in the hospital—would the same name (and both names on the birth certificate) make some small but crucial difference?

But part of this is being inspired by other (less scary) things.  The least of these was in choosing a return-address stamp and being annoyed that there is no way to get a monogram with more than one last initial.  Then there’s the house I walk by on my way to work with a sign saying “The Nelson’s” which I note every time for both its incorrect punctuation and the sort of cozy implications of family that come from having a shared name.  And I think about our imaginary future children and wonder if I’ll be sad that we don’t all have the same name—and the immediate recognition from strangers that we are family.  I realize that people will know that we’re a family anyway and that my kids will be my kids whether we’re called the same thing or not (my two stepsiblings each have different last names, and both are different from their mother’s, and they are obviously related to one another), but I can’t seem to stop thinking about it.

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Photo by Nevit Dilmen, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

I have to admit, I had another topic picked for this week, something funny and light in tone.  But then we got the call last week that Liz’s grandfather had passed away.  It was both expected and unexpected — he’d been in poor health for years and had recently taken a turn for the worse, but we thought it might just be a matter of adjusting his medications.  Having lived through both an expected and an unexpected death, I can honestly say that it doesn’t much matter: either way it hurts like hell.  To make matters worse, it was only a few days before Liz’s birthday.

So what’s a concerned and loving fiancee to do?  I am a problem-solver by nature, so I set out to “fix” this as best I could on the very next day.  You’d think I’d have learned in my 39 years not to try to fix certain things, but you’d be wrong. At least my heart was in the right place.  Though I do so hope you don’t have to solve this problem yourself, I quickly discovered there are many ways to include those loved ones who have departed in your wedding.

I contacted our officiant the next morning and asked her about the possibility of inserting our dearly departed into the wedding, perhaps in the unity candle ceremony.  I wondered if there was a way to do it without losing the joyfulness of the occasion.  Reverend Linda wrote back to say, “This is an often used ritual to honor precious people who have passed away. It won’t be maudlin, it will be beautiful.”

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