Photo used via m kasahara flickr photostream

8.  It’s environmentally responsible. When someone buys your wedding dress, that means that the energy, materials, waste, and carbon cost from shipping that would come from making a new dress are cancelled out.

7. It discourages unfair labor practices. It’s great if you can find a vintage dress you love or have one custom-made by a seamstress, but most wedding dresses are made in countries that have a history of treating their workers terribly.  By offering someone else the chance to buy your gown, you are lodging an act of protest for workers worldwide.

6. It saves you money and space. Cleaning, preserving, and storing a dress can eat up a lot of money… not to mention the space in your closet.  Who knew tulle could take up so much room?

5. Your children will have their own taste. Wearing the dress one of your parents wore when they wed is tres romantique, true.  But fashion changes, and who’s to say your kids will have the same passion for ruffles, rouching, or rhinestones that you do?  Come to think of it, what if they never get married at all?

4. It’s easy to resell. I’ll be selling my wedding dress through PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com because they make it simple and inexpensive, get tons of traffic, and are gay-friendly.  (I know because the founder told me so!)

3. Share the love! If you love it, chances are that someone else will too.  Why not pass on the joy of discovering THE dress?

2. “Trash The Dress” photo sessions can be expensive. More power to you if that’s what you choose to do, but I find something a little off-putting about deliberately destroying a symbol of your marriage.

1. Get the most out of your investment. Frankly, who couldn’t use a little more money in their pocket after their wedding?

I, on the other hand, usually notice a flicker of surprise when people I’ve just met catch on to my pronoun usage, which is often how I choose to out myself.  I guess I come off as straight because I have long hair (even though it’s usually pulled back), own a fair amount of skirts and dresses (though I spend most days in jeans and a t-shirt), and enjoy earrings and makeup (if I get up early enough to care about things like that). I’ve had conversations with sweet little old ladies about wedding planning come to a screeching halt when they realize I’m marrying someone of the same sex. Apparently I just don’t look gay– which is fine, because… I’m not.

I’m bisexual, and in some ways it’s much more troublesome for me to put that label on myself than it is to talk about my upcoming same-sex wedding. I won’t bother to write much about the people I’ve encountered, both straight and gay, who believe that you’re one thing or the other, and to say you’re bi is a copout. Then there are some who think that because I’m a girl marrying a girl, I’m a de facto lesbian, and to a degree I can see where they’re coming from. Why bother with that ‘bi’ distinction if I’ll never have a romantic relationship with a man again? Does it even matter who I find attractive if I’m committing myself to one person?

The thing is that to me, it does matter.

First off, let’s be honest here– just because I’ll be married soon doesn’t mean that Stacy is the only human being I’ll ever find appealing. No, I won’t be yelling “How YOU doin’, baby?” at passersby on the street, but there’s sure to be somebody I look twice at. Stacy does it; we all do it. And I think it’s healthy to acknowledge it and laugh about it with your partner. For us, this often takes the form of a crush on a public figure. Stacy’s got a thing for Jennifer Beals; I think Matthew Fox’s last name is quite apt. Interestingly, as teenagers we both had a semi-risque poster hanging on the back of our bedroom door that our parents either didn’t notice or ignored. (Hers was Janet Jackson, mine was Rachel Weisz.) I find that the people who evoke that kind of “Ooh! Pretty!” reaction from me are equally split between males and females. Yep, even after years with the same woman, I’m still bi!

Yeah, passing and harmless attractions to movie stars aren’t the most substantive reason to insist that the fact of my bisexuality be respected, but the point is that to me, my sexual orientation is about who I am, regardless of who I’m with. I didn’t think of myself as straight during my past relationships with men, and I don’t think of myself as gay now that I’m making a woman my partner for life. I believe that if Stacy was a man, I’d still want to marry her; I fell in love with a person, not the M or F on a driver’s license. Isn’t that what the heart of what GLBT rights are all about– the freedom to be ourselves openly and honestly, to find whomever we damn well please attractive, to love whomever we damn well want to love?

Wow, you guys.  I took my eye off the ball for just a second and before I know it we’re under four months till the wedding day.  Cuh-razy.

So, you’ve seen our reception location.  Now I’d like to show you our ceremony site, Westinghouse Memorial Pond in Schenley Park.

Photo used with permission from Elston via Flickr.

(My apologies — I haven’t been able to get my own photos of the site for reasons I’ll detail in another post, so I ended up using a lot of Flickr pictures from all seasons.  You’ll get the gist, though!)

It’s a gorgeous place, and even though there’s a road nearby it’s pretty tranquil.  Stacy and I have sat on those benches on many dates, enjoying the reflections in the pond and the sounds of the surrounding trees.

The metalwork, erected to honor George Westinghouse, is inspired by art-nouveau, intricately crafted,  and seriously beautiful.  It used to be covered in actual gold leaf, but vandalism forced its keepers to replace it with what I assume is bronze.  Whatever– it’s gorgeous:

Photo used via Creative Commons license on Flickr.

photo via Creative Commons license on Flickr.

Those are *turtles* holding up that rectangular piece!  Check them out from the front:

Photo used under Creative Commons license via Flickr.

I love that it combines history (I’m a total geek for that stuff) with beautiful art in a natural setting, but my favorite thing about the site is that the pond has a circular flagstone pathway around it where our guests will stand as we exchange our vows.  We’ll be able to see everyone, and I think that we’ll feel surrounded by love in a very real sense. We and our officiant will be standing on a small dais by the statue (which is dedicated to American Youth):

photo used with permission from Melissa@PPC via Flickr.

We’ll have several small pots of rusty-orange chrysthanthemums along the walkway, but really, we barely need any decoration.  I’m hoping we’ve timed the ceremony to catch the late-afternoon sunlight, when everything is covered in that soft, golden glow before sundown.

photo used with permission from Melissa@PPC via Flickr

I’m also hoping that our wedding day will be right at the peak of fall color, making everything that much more beautiful.

It’s probably pretty obvious that I adore the site, huh?  The only real downside has been that because it’s part of a public park, it’s officially public land, and that means… paperwork.  Confusing, vaguely threatening, hair-pulling paperwork.  I diligently started the process back in January, and it took me forever to get someone who could tell me what I needed to fill out so we had permission to hold the ceremony there.  It turned out to be a 16-page document that also asked me to draw a map of where everything would be, which couldn’t be submitted until 180 days before the event, but which local government didn’t have to return until three weeks (!!!) before the event.  I dutifully slogged through it and turned it in, only to be told that it wasn’t the right form after all.  I was then directed to fill out a different application specifically for weddings, and in an attempt to a) save myself from more paperwork and b) cover my bases, since same-sex marriage isn’t legal here and I didn’t want any problems, I asked if it mattered that we were a same-sex couple and therefore weren’t holding a legal ceremony.  Revealing that made me a little anxious, since I was talking to someone who could make things very difficult for us if they wanted to.  It was one of the first times I’ve felt that way during all of the wedding planning, because I’ve gone out of my way to make sure that all of our vendors are supportive before we chose them, but in this case we didn’t really have a choice of ‘vendor’.  As it turned out, she not only said it didn’t matter, she said I didn’t have to disclose it on the wedding application because it was “none of their business” and wished us a great day and beautiful weather.  Hooray for supporters in important places!

It took days and days of calling to ten different numbers, but I finally got in touch with someone who was able to give me the right application– which is only one page long and costs $25, as opposed to the other application’s $125.  I turned it in, and now I just have to wait to hear back and stop worrying.  (I am an incomparable worrier, I’m afraid.  The current worry is that there might be other engaged couples who don’t realize that a permit is needed to reserve the site and show up in full wedding gear before or during our ceremony.)

Ah, well.  The wheels are in motion, and with any luck I can soon stop worrying… and go back to dreaming about what it’ll be like to marry Stacy in our beautiful, beloved place.

photo used with permission from Melissa@PPC via Flickr.

I come from a family that loves music– I mean, REALLY loves music.  My mom was drumming in a band when she was pregnant with me and finally had to give it up when her belly got so big that she couldn’t pick up a dropped stick.  Two of my earliest memories with my dad are when he took me with him to hear his favorite South African pop group perform, and when I accompanied him to a local independent radio station to “help” him DJ his weekly show.

Stacy and I also have many musical memories- in the early days of our relationship we spent many evenings out enjoying our favorite house DJs, and over the years we’ve discovered new favorite artists (The Shins, Vampire Weekend, Jack Johnson, Danger Mouse, Virginia Coalition) and reawakened our love for the classics (The Beatles, Al Green, Ella Fitzgerald, Van Morrison, Paul Simon). Stacy’s extra excited about the prospect of buying a house since it means we’ll finally have enough room and privacy for her turntables. We love having the radio playing as we make dinner or Sunday brunch, and every road trip becomes an excuse for getting some new tunes.

What we and our guests will hear at the wedding reception has been the subject of as much careful thought as what we’ll wear or eat. My best friend’s husband is a DJ, and he’s graciously offered his services for our reception. I trust his taste– they had Booker T on their wedding website, for goodness sakes– but I wanted each part of the reception to have a specific musical feel, so I came up with the following suggestions to give him.

Cocktail hour: Sweetly retro, slightly jazzy. Music that won’t overwhelm conversations but keeps the mood light and romantic.

“They Can’t Take That Away From Me” by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong
“Quando, Quando, Quando” by Michael Buble and Nelly Furtado (scroll down, it’s #37.  Worth it just to hear the harmonies!)
“I’m in the Mood For Love” by Jamiroquai and Jools Holland
“Til There Was You” by the Beatles

Reception music to sway to: because you know I’m going to want any excuse to slow-dance with Stacy!

“Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green

“Stand By Me” by Ben E. King

“You Got It” by Roy Orbison

“How Sweet It Is” by James Taylor

Reception crowd pleasers: because I love it when everyone in the room is singing together!

“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by the Beach Boys, which I also see as a nod to our non-legal status.  And tell me that’s not the cutest video ever!

“Ob La Di, Ob La Da” by the Beatles

“Signed, Sealed, Delivered” by Stevie Wonder

“She’s A Lady” by Tom Jones (you can bet I’m going to be rocking out to this one!)

“I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” by the Proclaimers

“Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey.  Come on, it’s epic.  And I admit I have a huge, embarrassing soft spot for Journey.

Reception music to get everyone on the floor:

“Jungle Boogie” by Kool and the Gang

“One More Time” by Daft Punk

“Kiss” by Prince

“Love You Madly” by Cake

“Low Rider” by War

I’d love to hear what you’re planning to play at your reception!

Photo via Justin Liew’s flickr photostream.

I have a membership at a gym I really like. It’s clean and bright, the staff is friendly, there are people of all sizes there, it’s usually not too crowded… And I hadn’t gone there since December.

See, I get into this awful cycle where if I don’t go to the gym, I feel super-guilty for not going to the gym, and so I, uh… Don’t go the gym because I feel guilty. I know. It’s crazy. And yet it’s an incredibly hard cycle for me to break. But I went tonight, and I’m hoping to get back into going three times a week.

Now, I don’t want you to think I buy into the BS idea that I should be at my lowest-ever weight/smallest size for my wedding day. I’ve never been what most people would call skinny, and I’m not going to pressure myself to fit someone else’s idea of what my body should look like. Anyway, I already bought a dress that’s comfortable, flattering… and fits me as I am (including what I’ve gained since I stopped going to the gym– hooray for corsets!).

With that said, though, I do miss how I felt when I was working out regularly. I felt more confident, not because of how much I weighed, but because my body felt strong and flexible and healthy. I was less anxious, slept better, and had more energy… All of which come in handy when one’s planning a wedding.

So I’m climbing back on the horse, because even if I don’t lose any weight between now and October, I want to feel that confidence on my wedding day. You can call it ‘wedding fitness’ if you want to, I guess!

What are you doing to take care of your health as your wedding approaches?

photo via Flickr.

Disclaimer:  I know that many people have planned weddings that ended up costing a lot less than what ours will cost.  Please understand that  I’m not trying to position myself as an expert, or the shoestring-iest bride who ever did shoestring.  I’m just somebody who’s been thinking a lot about weddings and money for the past year or two.

If the title of this post caught your eye, chances are you’ve already done some Googling on this subject and are either completely overwhelmed or wondering where the beef/tofu cutlet is in the bajillion articles out there… or both.   Although I can’t claim to make sense of it all for you, I can offer some pointers that I don’t see getting a lot of airtime out there.

1. Feel no shame.
If you come across a wedding-planning article that insinuates you’re cutting corners or planning a crappy wedding if you don’t serve champagne/rent out a photobooth/have a calligrapher address your envelopes, immediately stop reading. Remember that slightly preachy song that told you not to read beauty magazines because they’d only make you feel ugly? Same deal here. If you feel like being an activist, write to the website or the magazine and tell them how their article made you feel, and make sure you stress that you, a member of their target demographic, are less likely to read them in the future. Never forget that the wedding industry is trying to make lots and lots of money, so they have a vested interest in converting all your wedding hopes and fears into purchases. The point I’m trying to get across here is this: it is completely okay to manage your wedding spending however you dang well please, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Which brings us to…

2. Your best defense is a good offense.
Each of us makes choices about what to include and what to leave out at our weddings, for reasons of personal taste, faith (or lack thereof), environmental consciousness, and of course budget.  You are almost guaranteed to encounter someone close to you who thinks it’s hardly a wedding at all if you don’t have (insert whatever here- a wedding cake, a garter, a professional DJ, floral centerpieces, flower girl/ringbearer…)  If you cut that thing out for budgetary reasons, it’s easy to feel hurt and defensive and maybe want to tell your sweet Great-Aunt Rose to just get off your $%*! back already. My advice is to be proactive: be a total loudmouth about your wedding planning with those close to you, and be honest about the reason for your decisions. Start a blog (or apply to blog for SoYou’reEnGAYged, if you’re a same-sex couple!) and send it out. Call your relatives to catch up, and mention in passing that the six-tier wedding cake was out of your price range, but you’re really excited about the baklava you’ll be serving. You probably already know who’s likely to have strong opinions about what makes a wedding, so target them and cheerfully, kindly, lovingly beat them to the punch. In a situation where you’ve been blindsided, take a deep breath, smile big, and remember that their wedding paradigm is just that: theirs. Not yours.

3. Start with the feelings, not the materials...
Many of us, myself included, have spent at least some time thinking about our wedding day long before a date has been set. This is fine, of course, but  it can mean that when we start actually planning we’re already thinking about what we’ll serve, wear, drive, eat, do, etc. on our wedding day.  This can set you up to feel pretty dejected indeed if the specific things you picture end up being out of your price range.  My suggestion is to take a step back and set goals related to the things that will last the longest after the wedding day- the feelings you’ll have about it. Sit down with your partner and talk about how each of you want to feel on your wedding day, and how you want your guests to feel as they look back on the day.  Write down the results. Do you want to have your guests feel like they got a glimpse of your families’ culture? Like they were an integral part of the day? Do you want to feel like you had a huge party and invited anyone and everyone you wanted to… Or would you be happier if you got to spend quality time with each guest individually? Try narrowing it down to a few adjectives: wacky, comfortable, exotic, artistic, etc. Then you can come up with multiple responses to the question “what would make the wedding feel this way?” Approaching the planning in this open-ended way gives you a ton of freedom to plan the kind of wedding you want, without being tied to a specific item.

4.  …but be intentional with your money.

As far as the actual number-crunching stuff, I’m afraid I won’t be a ton of help; managing the wedding budget is by far the most complicated financial task I’ve ever taken on. I didn’t start out with a solid number, nor did I parcel out x% to categories like reception, attire, and food and shop around for options accordingly. I simply started with what I wanted and figured out what we could afford as we saw the total cost of the wedding take shape. While this has worked out okay for me, it’s definitely NOT the most effective (or least stressful) way to go about planning a wedding when you don’t have a lot of money. More on how you can avoid this a little later.

5. Have a long engagement.
Longer engagements give you more time to save up, obviously, but they also give you more time to shop around with vendors, root through thrift stores for treasures, look for a pre-owned dress, and a ton of other things you wouldn’t necessarily think affect your bottom line. I think a lot of engaged couples end up spending more than they wanted to simply because time becomes so much of a factor. If the wedding is three months away and you need to lock down your party rentals, you’re probably already feeling stressed and pressed for time. You may not be able to price-check six different companies, and what’s more, you probably don’t *want* to, but if you have a year to find reasonably-priced tables, you’re much better off.

6. Use good, free planning tools.

When you’re keeping an eye on every dollar, organization becomes key.  It pretty much goes without saying that if you consider your budget ‘shoestring’ you’re probably not hiring a wedding planner.  Without the guidance of a professional, it’s hard to overestimate the value of having all of the options and figures and calculations available for comparison and review.  Hence: the vaunted wedding binder. This is so simple (and so related to point number one) that I hardly feel it needs to be said, but there is really nothing that a $20, $50, or even $75 wedding planning binder will give you that you can’t get yourself for cheap or free.. unless you’re suffering from a serious lack of pink, straight-biased, high-budget-focused, rhinestone-covered things in your life.  It’s not a bad idea at all to have a binder, but for goodness sake, they’re a dollar at Office Depot in the color of your choice (or free if, like me, you kept everything from college).  You can print out the (free) planning checklists from the (free) wedding website of your choice, use divider tabs to keep your flower ideas separate from your catering quotes, and tape whatever you want to the cover if you really want anyone who looks at it to know that it’s your Wedding Binder Full of Wedding Stuff.

However, I can say from experience that forgetting to take your binder with you to a meeting with a vendor can be extremely stressful.  I recommend combining your hard-copy binder with free Google Documents wedding planning templates, which have revolutionized my planning experience.  They’re easy to use, they’re adaptable, and you can easily share them with whoever you need to: your spouse-to-be, parents, members of the wedding party, whatever.  I love that I don’t have to be at a particular computer to access them.  And there are a bunch of templates available, from music playlists to seating charts to how to compare florists , and a budget spreadsheet which includes suggested percentages for the different parts of the wedding like attire and flowers AND uses formulas to calculate certain costs based on the number of attendants you’re having, etc.  I’ll give you that many of the templates use straight-focused language, but that’s why it’s so nice that they’re able to be edited, unlike the text of many website-based planning tools or paper binders.

…and that’s it for now.  I’ll certainly have more thoughts to share as the planning continues, but I hope you’ve at least gotten some food for thought and are feeling empowered to throw a memorable, meaningful matrimonial party on whatever budget you’re working with!

I grew up next door to one of the smartest, kindest, most down-to-earth women I’ve ever known. In high school, I would get up extra early, leaving the house before 5:15 am, so that I could ride into Downtown with her, and we had many lively conversations driving along the Monongahela river as dawn crept up. I have a distinct memory of one in particular, in which she told me that when you got right down to it, marriage was a financial agreement. She believed that a piece of paper filed at the county courthouse was far less important than the way two people felt about each other, and I have no doubt that although she was legally married to her husband, they could have been quite happy just non-legally cohabitating for the rest of their lives. Throughout my adolescence and young adulthood, I agreed wholeheartedly that if you really loved someone, if you really wanted to grow old with them, you didn’t need to stand in front of a minister, rabbi, priest, or judge and declare it. The two of you just knew, and that was enough.

However, when Stacy went down on one knee and asked me to marry her, it was a defining moment. She and I have always loved each other, but we first got together as teenagers and we’ve been through quite a lot of growing pains over the last ten years as we tried to figure ourselves out as individuals and as girlfriends. There were moments when I wasn’t even sure we could be friends, much less a couple. And yet there was always something pulling us together, giving us the courage to try again, to find our best selves.  Over time we learned a lot about how to treat each other and ourselves gently, what was worth arguing over, and how important it is to say what you feel.  When she proposed, I said yes not only because I love her, but because I knew that we had laid a solid foundation to build a life together upon.

In the year and a half that we’ve been engaged, I’ve done a lot of thinking about why we’re having a wedding, especially when we live in a state that neither allows same-sex weddings nor recognizes those performed in other states. The financial agreement theory doesn’t apply to us. After the vows are said and everyone goes home, nothing changes in the way the world sees us. We’ll still have to check off  ‘unmarried partner’ on the census form, we don’t get a tax break, and we’ll have to carry around a slew of costly documents prepared by a lawyer to protect whatever we can glean of our legal rights. So why spend so much time, effort, and money on something which has no bearing on how our lives in the Real World will proceed?

Well, for me there are two main answers. The first is that we deserve this. We deserve to formally commit ourselves to loving each other, and we deserve a day of joy and celebration with those we love in honor of that commitment. I deserve to feel beautiful, to wear a white dress and carry my favorite flowers.  Stacy deserves to hear her parents’ embarrassing stories and their words of love and pride during their toasts. We deserve to smile every time we drive past the ceremony site in later years, and we deserve to laugh about the things that went wrong– the missing decorations that nobody noticed, the stumble on the way down the aisle, the spilled wine– and to treasure the memories of our friends’ faces as they danced with their glasses held high above their heads. It’s not even a question– we do deserve these things, and so we’ll have them.

The second reason is tied up in the fact that she and I are people who value our relationships with friends and family more than anything else. We go to them for advice, for support, and for the occasional much-needed break from each other. Every good quality in us has been nurtured by the people we keep near, and there have been times when Stacy and I wouldn’t have known how to carry on if it hadn’t been for their gentle encouragement.  They have made us who we are individually, and they have helped us become the couple that we are together. So it makes sense that we feel they are the only ones whose opinion on whether our marriage is “real” matters. Knowing that they’re there to witness our vows, and that they’ll help us keep those promises to each other in the years to come, is what will bless and ratify our marriage with much more meaning than any document could ever grant.

In the end, though I came to it by a different path than what I expected, I’m in agreement with my neighbor: we know, and that’s enough. We’ll get married, and the government will just have to catch up with the paperwork. In the meantime, we’ll get on with loving each other inside the framework of the commitment we’ve made. I can’t wait.