So You're EnGAYged, a LGBT wedding blog

It feels strange to be writing this so soon after the long-awaited news that Proposition 8 has been overturned.  Although I believe all of us know that there’s still a long and difficult road ahead, there’s much to be said for attaining such a victory. Yet I have to admit, this news feels bittersweet for me.

I recently found myself un-engayged, less than three months from what would have been my wedding day. While I wish to respect my former partner’s privacy, I can say that this came as a terrible shock to me, and I’m still feeling a huge amount of grief. To be honest, I haven’t been able to bring myself to visit the site in the last few weeks. I know I’ll be back soon, though, because I still have so much in common with the  bloggers, the commenters, and the founders here: we love love.  We love being in love, we love talking about love, we love finding ways to express love with paper and flowers and fabric and yarn and music. Even though so much is changing for me, that quality remains– I still love love, and it still makes me happy to know that so many of you are on here celebrating it.

A few thoughts on marriage: I’ll admit that immediately after my engagement began, I was very much in “ooh, white dress!  big party!” mode. I loved Stacy intensely, and I never lost sight of the fact that the marriage that would result from the wedding (not the wedding itself) was the important part, but as I planned and chose and dreamed, I began to truly understand the depth and value of the commitment I was preparing to make. I understood how wonderful it is to be able to challenge yourself, knowing that someone is there to cheer and advise you… and to comfort you if you should fail. I realized how you can find the strength to push through difficult, scary things with your partner if you’ve decided that this relationship is where you’re going to place your heart. I’ve learned that if you know and trust yourself, there is an unmatched feeling of joy and safety inherent in knowing and trusting another. I’m amazed and grateful to learn that I can take all those things I learned about marriage with me, though my marriage is no longer on the horizon. Most of all, I learned again that ‘love’ is an action verb, one that becomes truer the more it is acted upon.

Keep loving, and thumb your nose to anyone who tells you that you shouldn’t because of their own prejudices or bad experiences. (A little premarital counseling is never a bad idea, though.)  Keep being true to yourselves, and cherish the challenges and the blessings that are part of sharing a life with someone.

It’s been my privilege to share my story with you, and I wish each of you a joyous wedding day… but much more importantly, I wish you marriages that inspire, honor, and sustain you and your partners as individuals and as a couple. I’ll see you around, I’m sure.

Cheers,

Alyia

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