White Knot ribbons + customized buttons by ButtonEmpire = corsages.
(Photos clockwise by Button Empire, K. Ono, and Wyatt Olson Photography)
A wedding with two brides should be gay enough right? Well, yes, but… sometimes you just want to make sure everybody’s getting the message: We’re Here, We’re Queer, and this is a Big F**king Deal! For that, sometimes you need to add a little gay detailia to your wedding, rainbow or otherwise…
To begin our gay detailia, we ordered a White Knot kit and sent them to my maid of honor for assembly. (Thank you, KT!) Next, we found our sassy wedding buttons to complete the ‘corsages’ for ourselves, the bridal party and our family from ButtonEmpire on Etsy. The corsages were comprised of a white knot + a London map button (20 buttons made from one map of London) + an ‘I’m with the bride(s)’ button (later used expertly by Julie & Jacqueline in their La Jolla wedding as well!). As an extra perk for Alex and me, ButtonEmpire created 2 special buttons that read ‘Those whom Love hath brought together let no Prop put asunder.’ — a fantastic button-with-bite pointing to the fact that we couldn’t legally marry in my home state of California because of Prop 8.
That certain CA proposition, however, also led to another purchase on Etsy: ‘Shame on H8′ earrings by SYE-approved vendor, Alaine Jewelry. The entire cost of these earrings, made with Swarovski crystals, went to a marriage equality campaign of my choice. Double bonus!
(Photos by Alaine Jewelry and Wyatt Olson Photography, respectively.)
Continuing the rainbow theme, Bridesmaid Kate offered to knit me a rainbow shawl from a pattern on ravelry.com (there are a ton to choose from!) and it turned out beautiful. The wedding day itself ended up being much warmer than expected so I didn’t actually get to wear it but for a few photos. I will now, though, have a rainbow shawl to wear whenever I please… (Ah, if a rainbow shawl was all it took for people to know ‘I’m queer!’)
The rainbow-ness continued into our cake and DIY cake topper: a white, buttercream cake with white chocolate buttons on the outside, a rainbow (white) cake on this inside, topped off an embroidery hoop for ‘The Brides.’ The cross-stitch pattern was inspired by our Country Kitsch RSVP card, designed by Bridesmaid Christy who wanted to throw in a bit-o-gay into our invites! The inside of the cake was an inspiration for a post ages ago on SYE and we were able to keep it a secret from (most of ) our guests until the actual cutting!
(Photo on left and top right by K. Ono; photo on bottom left by Wyatt Olson Photography.)
Elsewhere on the cake table, we added a few other touches that were gay-flag-esque. One was a gift from a family friend who collects Pez: a set of two Toy Story 2 ‘Jessie’ Pez dispensers. They would have been adorable as cake toppers as well for our country kitsch do, but we were already sorted on that front. Still, we added them to the decorations as our honorary ‘Bride & Bride’ figurines.
We also put our wedding certificate on the table for all the guests to sign during the reception. We hoped that having it on display, and asking all of our guests to sign it, would remind people that while they were ratifying our love by their witness, the government bodies of our state and country weren’t going to be.
One not-so-obvious gay detail from our ceremony was my choice of poem: ‘White Writing’ by Carol Ann Duffy. Now the UK Poet Laurette, Duffy has been very open about her bisexuality for a long time and her poetry doesn’t shy away from the subject matter either. The poem ‘White Writing’ was presumably written for Rapture (2005) before the UK Civil Partnership Act was put into law the same year it was published. To me, the poem references the creation of ‘a marriage where we’re told there shouldn’t be one,’ to quote our ceremony script. By ‘writing it white,’ we as a couple are creating our own rules to live by, whether our union is legally recognized or not. To draw a bit more attention to Duffy as a poet during the ceremony as well, we also found a gorgeous copy of a new collection called Love Poems which you can see Bridesmaids Corinne and Mallory holding in the photo below.
All the rainbows, candy dispensers, and poetry aside, though, the biggest statement we made on our wedding day was putting our names on the county fair marquee announcing our wedding reception. This may not seem such a big deal–there are a number of venues which will announce your wedding on their marquees–but it made me nervous nonetheless. I talked about some of my fears around having our wedding in my very small, Northern California town here before, but just because I’d written them didn’t mean I’d gotten rid of them!
You see, the last time I was at the fairgrounds before our wedding, it was November 2008 and I was voting No on Prop 8 while my drive to that polling station had been lined with Yes on 8 signs–my county was a firm ‘red’ on that measure. And even as our last names do not signify our gender (i.e. someone randomly passing by wouldn’t guess it was a gay wedding), my family is known around town and anyone that’s spoken to my parents in the last few years knew I was marrying a lady! We didn’t have any of the negative reaction I feared by publicizing our wedding reception, but I do know many of the people in town took notice–and, thankfully, we received much praise and love for our public gesture.
All photos by Wyatt Olson Photography (unless otherwise noted!)
Didn’t catch the previous recaps of the California Country Kitsch Love Fest? Get ‘em here:
Cocktail Hour & Family Portraits
Country Kitsch Wedding Preview!
So awesome! I love all the little gay touches! I’m definitely stealing an idea or two from all of the awesome posts people have put up here! Thanks for sharing!