In the heterosexual wedding world, I feel there a few rules of ceremony assigned by gender that are pretty set. You know what I’m talking about: the groom walks in first, wearing a suit and a boutonniere, and stands on the (audience) right with his groomsmen beside him; the bride walks down the aisle next, in a dress, carrying a bouquet, wearing a garter belt, and stands on the (audience) left with her bridesmaids.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that (and as far as I know, no patriarchal oppressive history behind it), it just appears to be the standard, if you will. Alex and I, however, want to mess a bit with these gendered rules for our ceremony–because, basically, we can. It is a queer wedding after all!
Our reasoning? Well, neither Alex nor I embody a particularly masculine or feminine gender, we’re somewhere fluid in the middle. She may be wearing a suit to our wedding, but I’ve owned a hammer from the age of 2. I may be wearing a dress, but she’s a way better baker. We’ve got our feminine parts and our masculine parts and we know it…we’re just not so sure our distant relatives and parents’ friends would recognize it when we roll up in our rather gendered outfits. Plus, we like subtly and subversiveness.
It’s the little things. Like, Alex is going to carry a bouquet of different shades of purple tulips and I am widening the straps on my dress so I can wear a boutonniere of fresh, seasonal greenery.
I am walking down the aisle first and will stand on the right, with my brother as my Best Bro beside me. Alex will come down the aisle next and stand on the left, with her brother beside her as her Best Man.
If we could have two aisles in our small space, we probably would. Our fathers are walking with us, and we’ll ask our brothers to walk our mothers. Traditions kept, traditions flipped.
They are little things, but for Alex and I, it would be too easy (and without purpose) to conform to you-stand-here-cause-you’re-wearing-pants and you-here-in-the-dress. Alex has said over and over that she wants everything in our wedding to have meaning and these details of where to stand, what to carry, and who to honor will be meaningful for us.
Oh yes there is a gender-oppressive reason behind it! :D In the “olden days”, the groom would have stolen his bride from her family. He’d then stand on the right of the ceremony setup in order to keep his sword-hand (right hand) free to be able to defend himself from said family. And the best man? Yeah, he’s there to help fight back against the family so the groom can capture the bride.
One note: in Jewish ceremonies, the sides are flipped!
Nice post, I love to see how queer couples navigate these traditions. Switching the bouquet and bout up…cool idea!
Awesome post. I especially what you said about how both of you have masculine and feminine qualities. I’m pretty sure that all of our guests will see me as the “groom” since I’ll be the one not wearing a dress. I like the ways you’re sort of turning the traditional roles on their ear…very cool. The thing I love about this site is reading these posts and realizing, “Hey, I never thought about that. How are we going to deal with this same problem?”
I love the fact that we get to choose what to what to do. Like I know there will defintly not be a garter toss.
Lara! Thanks for the wedding history–good to know, and now I wish I had a sword (kind of). Also, why are the sides flipped in Jewish weddings?
Yay for figuring out how it works for each of us…
Great ideas for switching things up! I love it when couples add to the traditions and mix them up a bit- makes a wedding so unexpected instead of “same-old.”
Well I think it’s nice to do what you really feel suits you, but to change tradition just because you think traditions are not pc is problematic. I mean judging by the praise you’re getting here for not conforming to gender stereotypes, it raises the question of do couples avoid gendered tradiltions because they truly don’t like them, are is it because they fear the political fall-out of being “traditional”? I feel sad that persons who are clearly more feminine or more masculine, are afraid to acknowledge it for fear of criticism. If a man should be free to be feminine and not feel he has to prove he has traditional masculine traits, then shouldn’t a woman be equally free to be feminine and not feel she has to prove that she’s more androgynous just because that is more politically correct. Or the same for a masculine woman.
There’s a question of protesting too much. That is, when you feel you have to state that you’re not really as feminine or masculine as you appear, it makes it appear that you’re conforming to political pressure to claim to be androgynous because it’s more politically acceptable. Sad, really.