So You're EnGAYged

Us in our Vintage Attire

This past weekend Joey and I drove down to Southern California for a wedding shower that my Mom, my cousin Michelle and her wife Jennifer threw for us. A while back my mom told us the three of them were planning a shower around the ideas featured in one of our favorite books I Like You: Hospitality Under The Influence by Amy Sedaris. The book contains multiple homages to the entertaining days of the 50′s and 60′s. When every party had a Jello mold and every lunch had two martinis. A “Classier” era if you will.

We were instantly excited by this idea, little did we know they would do SO MUCH more. We walked into Michelle and Jennifer’s backyard in our vintage attire (they asked people to dress in a Mad Men style) to see an adorable vintage wonderland. The tables were laid out in multiple shades of gingham with pots of daisies and antiques everywhere. The details were so adorable, from vintage ashtrays and matchbooks (My favorite was a matchbook and ashtray from the now defunct Disneyland Tobacco Shop), PEZ dispensers,  vintage candies and magazines.

Backyard at the shower

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At San Francisco Pride 2010 Joey faces Intolerance with a smile

We last left off where I had just send my Aunt May a heartfelt email imploring her to attend my wedding, and telling her all the reasons why it was so important to me to have her there. After two days of long silence she returned my email…

I quickly read through the email looking forward to an uplifting turn in the words as she had grasped the importance of the event, and would in spite of her reservations choose to attend. But the turn never came, in fact the email quoted the same judgmental Bible verses all homophobes use. It told me all about how accepted I was, but all of the reasons I would never be accepted. It told me that God was pretty clear about homosexuality and that she felt she had to take all of the terms of the bible, not just some, to heart. We would always be welcome in her home and life, but just probably not in heaven (in fairness thats my spin on the words that were said).

I was told that this wasn’t about “Me”, that it wasn’t personal. I made choices she did not agree with, and did not have to. It was the same hard line unfeeling homophobic religious dreck that ignorant people all of the country spout off in the name of God. I felt sick. I felt hurt. I felt broken. I had given so much of myself in the letter I wrote and there was not an ounce of acknowledgment in the letter I received back. I should have been prepared for this, but instead I was completely blindsided.  But one word burned, deep down within me and grew like a cancer… CHOICE.

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It’s a part of the everyday life of gays and lesbians that we face intolerance. This isn’t something that changes once you’re engaged. In fact, due to the the political climate we live in, its your upcoming wedding may bring out the absolute worst in some people. These challenges are easier to face when we are dealing coworkers and strangers, because we aren’t as emotionally invested in these people. However there are times when we are faced with intolerance within our families and its a completely different kind of hurt. We stumble and are forced to re-find our footing and deal with the idea that our built in support system is abandoning ship. If your reading this for advice, I’m afraid I have none to give, but only can share my account and hope it helps you face these issues on your own.

My Crazy Supportive Family. (From Left to Right) My Mom, Joey, Me, My Brother Justin, His fiancée Nikki and my Dad

For me, I have been gifted a truly amazing and supportive family. I count myself as one of the lucky ones.  Both my mother and father have welcomed Joey into their family as a third son, and my Brother and his fiancée have never been anything but warm and accepting. The unfortunate side aspect of this is that when intolerance did surface in my extended family I was caught unprepared. For the sake of discretion we’re going to call the relative in question “Aunt May”. Here is a little background on my “Aunt May”…

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So its already here, my three month wedding invite window has finally approached and its time to bring on the invitation projects. Where did all the time go?  When it came time to design the invites for Joey and I’s Halloween tinged Orange County beach Nuptials, I labored over what to do. My previous DIY, the Ouija Board Save the Dates, went over extremely well and they stemmed from a want for something classy but still fun and spooky. Whilst brainstorming ideas that were “Classy”, “Halloween”, “Spooky”, and “Orange County” in style. I had a revelation. Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion.

Located a mere ten miles from our ceremony site, Disneyland, has always been a favorite place of Joey and I’s, and The Haunted Mansion, one of our favorite attractions. The ride which premiered at Disneyland in 1969, takes guests through the corridors of a manor inhabited by 999 Happy Haunts (with room for one more of course).  The ride is spooky to the hilt, but not gorey or graphic in the way many more modern “haunted” attractions are. Its been the subject of songs, merchandise, and a critically-bashed film (which I couldn’t bring my self to hate, even though it is pretty bad) and now… wedding invites.

Various Invite Cards with Hidden Haunted Mansion Trinkets

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There is a menace out there in the wedding world, and its at every grocery store, every news stand and every pit stop you make. It taunts you with its glossy airbrushed brightly colored beauty, Its craft ideas and promises, it’s bold stylized letters that call out to you with “100 Ways to Cut Your Budget” or “50 Things Every Couple Must Absolutely Know”.

Yes, I’m talking about wedding magazines. Its pure unbridled wedding planning pornography, and we eat it up. Oh I know what you’re thinking, “What could possibly be so bad about some harmless wedding magazines?”. Well, unfortunately, there is a lot written between the lines on those pages.

When we began the preliminary stages of planning our wedding about a year ago, Joey I rushed out and bought a bundle of the latest wedding magazines. We flicked through the pages eyeballing the floral arrangements, the towering cakes, and the ever so chic couples featured in the spreads. It was fun! We talked about what we liked and what we wanted, what we absolutely hated and couldn’t even imagine. It was a perfect way to start our planning process because, like most couples, neither of us knew a thing about planning a wedding.

But as time went by and we developed our own ideas and personal tastes, a disturbing trend emerged in my wedding magazine reading. For, I would say, 80% of you, wedding magazines are going to eventually make you feel inferior about something. One of the first facts I read in a wedding magazine was that the average American wedding costs $28,000 and for “lucky” “brides” its more like $50,000+. I dunno about you readers, but my wedding budget isn’t even a third of the “average wedding”. And this is the chief problem; these magazines only cater to one niche audience, and they will tell you its average.

Specifically for you LGBT readers, this niche audience does not seem to include you. There is absolutely no gender neutral language in a wedding magazine. You will not find images of gay couples, you will not see representations of yourself. Martha Stewart Weddings did include a gay wedding its pages fairly recently which was definitely a step in the right direction but it was blip of sea of hetero wedding speak. This is something seemingly harmless but it can force yourself into “roles” you wouldn’t normally place on yourself. For example when I read a magazine and see the word Bride, I have to assume thats geared at me as I am at the forefront of most of our planning. But I’m not a bride… I’m a man, I hate the idea of being considered a bride.

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(Photo by Brooke Jensen)

I thought I’d take a little break this time from my usual “planning update” posts to write a little bit about why I am getting married and why its so important to me.

I have a co-worker who is well a trifle nosey and more than a little conservative who loves to prod me with wedding questions every time I see her. At first I felt that she was asking me so many questions because she herself had recently got married and wanted to offer advice and support, but as time has gone on she has slowly revealed that she is flat out questioning of my relationship and my right to marry. Its a minefield every conversation we have, in which I try not to trigger any bombs by only giving her as little information as I possibly can. However the other day she asked a doozey…

Coworker: So if your wedding is in California , it wont be a legal wedding, because the voters repealed the courts decision there. (SIDE BAR: Oh really? I hadn’t heard anything about that.) So if your wedding isn’t a legal one, why even bother?

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Sorry for the absence readers, I could bore you all with the routine reasons why I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write but lets just skip it and get back into planning mode. Joey and I have had our wedding party picked for quite some time now, in fact it was pretty much the first thing we decided on, and for us its pretty much all women. On Joey’s side he has a maid of honor and 3 women, and on my side I have 2 Maids of Honor, 1 woman and 1 man, which we have dubbed them our Groomsladies (and groomsman). In addition to them Joey’s two young nieces will be serving a ring bearer and flower girl!

Now our wedding color scheme is patterned after both traditional and non traditional Halloween palettes of Orange, Royal Purple, Black, and Chartreuse.  Aside from the black its a fairly loud set of colors and ones that don’t look great on everyone (I cant pull off Orange myself, except for in small amounts). I really didn’t want the girls to go out and buy a dress they would never wear again for the sake of being matchy, and I know NOTHING about what to put on different kinds of female bodies to be the most flattering. The simplest solution was to let the girls pick their own black dress and they we would add color with a ribbon and accessories. So we selected a color for each girl (and boy) from the color scheme for them to base their accessories on. Whilst the flower girls would wear orange and purple dresses with a black ribbon.

I made up a website for the group with some example of cocktail wear from various websites all priced under $50 (most were actually under $30) and info on which color 1 inch satin ribbon they should purchase from a bridal boutique.

Ribbons, Ribbons, Ribbons!A few dress examples

A few dress examples

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