This weekend, we took the Dykes Planning Tykes course that I mentioned in that earlier post. I was SO excited! I think I’ve been looking forward to this forever. But was incredibly nervous, too. This course was kind of the marker for when it was going to be time to actually start making decisions and plans. This weekend was supposed to be the gateway into a whole phase of life for us. That’s pretty heavy stuff!

And the weekend did not disappoint. It was amazing. While I was expecting to get a whole bunch of information, I didn’t anticipate the emotional work that would be involved. It was more than just getting facts and asking questions – we talked a lot about our concerns, our excitement, our struggles. Everyone was very open and honest, and I am deeply grateful for what everyone shared with one another. By the end of the weekend, we felt intimately close with this group that were strangers only days before. I guess that’s what happens when you lock yourselves in a room and talk about tracking your ovulation cycle…

As for what kind of information we got? Well, it was a lot. The only thing that we knew for sure, was that we wanted to conceive. Specifically, that I would conceive. But other than that, we were pretty much in the dark on a) how to make that happen, and b) how to figure out the legalities. Thankfully, the legal stuff ended up being way less intimidating, and I think we’re feeling much more relaxed about the legal aspects than we were before – But more on that later. I’d like to do a seperate entry on adoption information, so for now I’m going to go over some of what I found out about pregnancy.

So, who wants to know a little bit about making babies?!?!

*I am in no way a medical professional and am not qualified to be teaching anyone anything about how this stuff works. Just sharing what info I managed to pick up, from my own point of view of someone who is taking this information into consideration for my own decisions.*

Sperm: If you are a person with ovaries who wants to conceive, you need sperm! There’s no way around it. So, where you going to get it? First option is a sperm bank. There are sperm banks, and there are fertility clinics – you buy your sperm at the sperm bank and have it shipped to the fertility clinic where they inseminate you. Some have programs set up so you can do it yourself at home.

Known Donor: If you want to use sperm from someone you know, it’s tricky. You can do it a couple of ways – they provide a specimen, and you use a syringe to inseminate yourself (can’t freeze it – have to keep it warm and do it fairly quickly after it’s “produced”). Alternatively, you can go to a fertility clinic with your donor to have them deposit it there, where it will be tested. Then it can be frozen, stored, and “washed” if you want – and then you get inseminated by the doctor at the clinic. Or you can have them deposit it at the clinic and get inseminated while it’s still fresh, BUT (in Canada) they will only inseminate someone with fresh sperm if the donor is your “sexual partner”. Sucks, right? Hetero-bullshit, I say, but moving on… So, they said that that is only a verbal statement that you give at the clinic, so you can just walk in with your donor and say it’s your sexual partner and there’s not really much they can do to prove otherwise. The thing to know about known donors, is that there are serious legal considerations. I’ll talk about that in the legal part!

Unknown/ID Release Donors: This is the sperm you buy from a sperm bank. There is the option for donors whose identities you can NEVER know, or donors who agree that when the child turns 18 they can access the identity and information about the donor. Either way, you get to pick from a catalogue of information about the donor – the basics like height, eye color, hair color, etc. plus all the stuff they’ve been tested for, and then things like occupation, hobbies, etc. And some of the more comprehensive catalogues will have current photos, baby photos, videos, or even letters from the donors talking about themselves and why they chose to donate. Some clinics will let you take your sperm home to inseminate yourself, but for most its common to have it done in the clinic. The cost, averaged out over a few cycles (it usually takes a few attempts), will come between $800-$1200/cycle depending on where, how, and what type of sperm you use (washed, unwashed, etc.). They say on average expect to need up to 6 cycles (about 6 months), but that at 6 months the success rate is above 80%.

Fertility Monitoring: One of the most important parts of this whole process is getting to know your own ovulation cycle. This is actually step one for anyone planning to get pregnant. While you can buy a fertility monitoring kit at the drugstore, it’s accurate to a wider range than some other methods. You can do lots of things at home on your own to get to know your cycle – monitoring your basal temperature, checking your cervix, testing your mucus, ferning, and the drugstore kits. You can also get bloodwork done regularly at a fertility clinic, and they will track your cycle for you (this is free in Canada, but I don’t know about in the US). The better you know your cycle, the greater your chance of succeeding in getting pregnant. If you’re working with a fertility clinic, this is something they will do with you. But if you’re going to be trying on your own, you need to track for several months before you start trying so you get to know when the right time is going to be. As for whether or not you can have fertility tests done before you try to conceive – it’s not common practice. Usually, if you have no abnormal medical history around your reproductive system, they will go ahead with insemination and only test for problems if you are having a hard time conceiving. If you have had problems with your reproductive system, there are tests that they will do to see how your fertility is.

Legal Considerations:

1. If you have an unknown/id release donor, your baby is yours. While the form that they sign that they are surrendering their sperm is not a legal waiver of parental rights (you can’t give up parental rights to a child that doesn’t exist yet, hence you can’t give up parental rights when you donate sperm), because of anonymity there is no way for them to know your baby is theirs – so the anonymous route is pretty much safe.
2. In Ontario, two women can put themselves on a birth certificate if the father is unknown, in which case there is no real need to go through the adoption process for the non-biological parent. For ourselves though, because we are one Canadian and one American, we will likely go through the adoption process anyway because it’s easier for getting the child American citizenship through my American partner (who will be the non-bio parent). This step isn’t necessary for most people, but if there are any complications, it can be recommended because adoption is known and recognized in most countries, while having two people of the same sex on a birth certificate is more foreign to some countries (so if frequent travel and/or your country of citizenship is a concern, it’s something to consider). And I’m not sure quite how it works in the US – I think you can’t put two women on any birth certificates, in which case you would need to do the adoption process in a state where same-sex partner adoption is legal.
3. With a known donor, things get trickier. If you talk to a lawyer about using a known donor, they’ll scare the crap out of you! Because their job is to warn you of the risks, and there are a LOT of risks with a known donor. How it works is, you would typically put together an agreement with you donor, using a lawyer for yourself and a lawyer for the donor. This document should cover expectations around involvement of the donor, financial obligations, decision making authority, etc. Unfortunately, this document won’t hold up in court if your donor decides they want more access to, or even custody of, their biological offspring. Yikes. That’s because courts will make a judgment based on what’s best for the child, and no legal document can take precedent over the best interest of a child. So, no matter what safeguards you put in place in the beginning, you don’t have a guarantee that your donor  could end up with more access to your child than was intended. But that being said, LOTS of people have happy and healthy arrangements with known donors where there are no problems at all. It’s just something you need to think really hard about, and know what the realities are. After the baby is born, you can (don’t have to, but it’s helpful especially in the worst-case-scenario) apply for the non-biological parent to adopt the baby – at which point your donor would sign the adoption papers giving up the baby. Again, while this is a legal adoption, they can still petition later for more access or custody and there is no guarantee (because if its seen to be in the best interest of the child, the paperwork doesn’t matter). BUT – it’s good to have all this paperwork (donor agreement, adoption papers) as it shows the intention of the parties involved should things ever end up in court in the future.

There is more to all that then I even touched on, but that’s basic overview of the info I got recently. As for us, no decisions yet. But we are still decided on our timeline, and hopefully we will start trying in a little less than a year. So despite now having a bit of an information overload, we need to start having discussions about actually making some decisions! Putting the plan into action takes time, and I think we’re officially on the clock. As to how we’ll start making those decisions, I’m not sure. I think a LOT of talking, and more reading, and more questions, and then more talking. But what’s exciting is that we have both agreed that we want to relax a little bit more on the “how” of it all, and keep focused on the fact that the best layed plans change anyway – so however it happens doesn’t matter, as long as the end result is the same… BABY!

But when we got married, something changed about our dreaming. I can’t quite define it. A sense of urgency, maybe? Or maybe the opposite – maybe it was relaxation? Being more optimistic? More realistic? Maybe it was just all these things combined. But whatever it was, it was different.

What happened was that dreams took on a different meaning. You see, dreams about the future were just that – about the FUTURE. And in so many ways, marriage is the beginning of your future. So, for us, dreams couldn’t just live in that “over there” space anymore. If we wanted them to happen, it was time to turn them into GOALS!

I say that as if we have some sort of air-tight method for turning your dreams into goals with strategic plans for them to be achieved. Well unfortunately , we don’t. I’ve just definitely noticed a change in our behavior around, and attitude towards, the things we think and say we want to have for ourselves as a family. We’ve become better about being able to identify when we’re just mulling over an interesting idea, or when it’s something that is important enough for us to want to fully investigate and invest our time and energy in. We’re learning how to carve out space, time, and energy for us as a couple to incorporate goal-setting, and the working towards goals, into our new married life.

And so far, so good. I think the big shift came for us when we actually acknowledged that shift from “dream” perspective to “goal perspective”. We started being more honest about what we really wanted, and started insisting on taking conversations into new, and more concrete directions. No longer satisfied with thinking about what we wanted, we started to get excited in talking about how we were going to get it!

And this is true too of not just our goals as a family, but our goals as individuals. We’ve both gotten a lot better about being honest with ourselves, and one another, about what we really want to experience and achieve. I think a part of it is the security of knowing you have someone who will back you on it. But another part of it is that when you realize you are sharing your life with someone else, you learn that it’s imperative that you be vocal and active about getting your own needs met. You need to be your own advocate for what goals are important for you to achieve as an individual, and you can’t let yourself get entirely consumed by couple and family goals. That may sound strange, but I think it’s actually a really good thing – one of the many good things you learn about being a better individual by being a part of a married couple.

So we still have dreams: running a goat farms, or driving a hot chocolate vending truck, or giving up everything to live in seclusion in a Costa Rican village. But we have also transitioned  some of our old dreams into concrete goals, with actionable plans: having children, owning a home, working abroad, to name a few. The difference is we’ve learned life is too short for us to only let things live out as dreams, and they won’t just take care of themselves.

Does this look like a traditional bride and groom? In many ways it is... but in many ways it's not.

image by Kelly Prizel Photography

As a couple, on the surface, we very much fit the gender role binary. I am femme (though I  like to refer to myself as “relaxed femme” – girly but pretty low-maintenance). Bek’s gender identity is what, for now, I will call “in process” (currently somewhere within the masculine-identified genderqueer vicinity). And we are both really happy playing into the societally assigned roles that are paired with masculinity and femininity.

Let me be clear – the reason we like it is because it is a choice. Our very own, very personal, very queer choice.

Anyone who looks at us and sees two lesbians, sees a butch and a femme who fit just about every stereotype. Anyone who looks at us and sees a man and a woman, sees a fairly traditional male/female dynamic. Anyone who knows us as the queer couple that we are, (hopefully) sees that things are a little more complex than that.

So I take care of the household work, bake, decorate, wear my dresses, and can’t friggin’ wait till I can stay home with the kids. Bek does the home repair, takes care of the car (and drives), looks smokin’ hot in a three piece suit, and wants to work outside of the home to be our family’s financial support.

Had my life gone differently, and I had ended up married to a cis-man (like, if I hadn’t realized I was queer, or been in denial, or something…), I would not have wanted this type of dynamic. But because this is the dynamic we have chosen for ourselves, it’s different. I feel empowered by it, and the queering of these traditional gender roles feels like we are still very much outside of the binary – which is the way I like it. And of course a part of this is that we are not bound by them; there are things about us as individuals and our dynamic as a couple that don’t fit the binary, and we see the binary as a culturally produced norm rather than entirely biological or “the way it should be”.

So how did this factor into the wedding itself? Well, I was the BRIDE. I planned the hell outta that thing, and loved every minute of it. I was still a pretty low-key bride, but I liked planning it because it encompassed so many things that I enjoy – entertaining, hosting, decorating, crafting, and, I’ll admit it, lookin’ pretty. And my groom… well, my groom isn’t into most of that. And Bek didn’t really have a clear vision of what this event was supposed to be or do for us, in part because we were already married.

So, I was head planner. But Bek was definitely helpful – never at any point was it assumed to be my responsibility. All final decisions were made together, even if I was the one to come up with, research, and present the options and then execute it once the decision was made. And there were several ideas and even projects that Bek headed up. But here’s where our dynamic was actually really AWESOME for our wedding planning – Bek was full-on in charge at the wedding. Bek used to be a stage manager, and so running the show is second nature. Once we were in NYC in the week leading up to the wedding, Bek was all over it – coordinating people, running errands, managing setup, and making sure everything was going smoothly. A groom running all over town taking care of errands, lugging boxes and supplies, and taking care of uncomfortable confrontations is supposed to be a bride’s dream come true, right? Bek put in a lot of work so that I could relax and enjoy myself. We’ve got a good thing going: I’m the one for the pre-planning and Bek’s the one for on-the-ground execution.

So while I may have had some frustrations while planning, sometimes feeling over-burdened and lonely, in the end I think we actually made a good team. And those frustrations were things we talked about, and worked through. Actually, my favourite piece of advice on this topic that I read while planning was an article on partnership imbalances and wedding planning at Offbeatbride. It helped me put some of my frustrations, and my bride-ish tendencies in perspective. Because the gendering of wedding planning is not only about who does what, but also about who feels what and how they behave. The polarizing of masculine and feminine roles in weddings reinforces certain attitudes and emotions that are presented as not just normal but expected. I, and I think Bek to a lesser extent, fell into the trap of playing into those gendered attitudes: bride is frustrated that groom won’t help, groom withdraws and avoids confrontation with bride… And THIS particular aspect of traditional gender roles did NOT work for us. But it was good for us to confront and work through. Wedding planning had an incredibly positive effect on our relationship, and brought us closer as a couple.

What worked for us in wedding planning, and what works for us in our marriage, is not right for everyone. But it is right for us. At least for now. Who knows how we will grow and change? But the best part about being an active and engaged participant in a gendered dynamic rooted in choice is that you have control of the what and the how of it, and there is a fluidity that allows for growth, change, and evolution of the individuals and the relationship itself. Our wedding planning process brought a lot of the more difficult elements of our particular dynamic to the surface, where we had an opportunity to talk about them, reflect on them, and make choices about how we wanted things to be moving forward. In this way, the heavily gendered aspects of weddings and wedding planning can be not only confusing and frustrating for a queer couple, but they can force confrontation with points of resistance that can be revelatory, emotional, and even empowering.

Leaving City Hall after we got hitched - showing off that I am indeed a married woman! That's supposed to be my sassy "What?!" face...

We didn’t have an engagement, really. We decide to get married and then just did it nine days later. In those nine days, we bought rings for us to exchange at the wedding – two simple bands that didn’t match each other but that we picked because they suited us individually. We did have a conversation beforehand about whether or not we wanted rings, and decided that we did because it was a cultural symbol that we liked and we felt comfortable with what we knew to be the origins of the tradition – something about the circle being an unending thing, and the vein in the ring finger being a straight line to the heart (whether or not this is correct I can’t be 100% sure, but we like the idea). So we got wedding bands.

During this discussion, and while ring shopping, Bek asked if I wanted an “engagement type” ring also, or if I wanted my wedding band to be something more blingy (in the style of an engagement ring) or just altogether different or unique  or fancy. I said no – I wanted my band to be plain… But that maybe later, I might like another ring or to “upgrade” the one we got. Which was kind of the plan for both of us anyway; because we were in a rush there wasn’t time to get any good quality gold or platinum rings sized before the wedding (and I have bizarrely thin fingers for a 6ft tall person, or any person for that matter, so they just don’t have rings in my size hanging around the store). So we decided to get cheap silver bands, and later when the time was right get something  more substantial that would last longer.

For the record, I LOVE my wedding band. When I do get it replaced, I will get one made to look exactly like it but in better quality metal. It’s perfect, and I have no regrets about any decisions made about rings at that time. None whatsoever.

So I always said I wasn’t the engagement ring “type”. I always said that I wouldn’t need an engagement ring – money was better spent elsewhere, I didn’t need that sort of physical representation of love from someone, outdated hetero-patriarchical tradition that represented ownership of women, bah blah blah. But note that I said I didn’t NEED an engagement ring – I didn’t say I didn’t WANT one. I’d have liked to think I didn’t want one, and I may have even lied to myself and others once or twice by saying that I didn’t.

But here’s the thing – I’m kinda girly. It’s taken a while for me to discover, grow into, and now celebrate my femme identity. But now I’m fully onboard with my femme self, and am trying to not chastise myself everytime I like/want/appreciate something that is stereotypically feminine. And for whatever reason, a more flashy ring became a part of that. I still didn’t necessarily want diamonds, I would have happily gotten something fake or a cheaper stone. I just started to notice other people’s rings and start to think that maybe I would like something similar.

Truth be told, I think a part of it was insecurity about our quickie wedding with no one there, and that was only legal in one of our countries, that had me almost feeling like we weren’t really “Grown-Up Married”. I know it sounds silly, but I think some part of me felt like our wedding wasn’t taken seriously by others. And the engagement-style ring wasn’t a part of that necessarily – I very truly don’t think that a sparkly ring, or any ring or any THING, is required for people to commit themselves to one another for life  - but the engagement-style ring just for me became a symbol of being a “Grown-Up Married” person. I still can’t entirely make sense of why that is, because it wasn’t about spending the money on it or anything. Maybe it was that it became a symbol of the marriage planning process, of someone declaring their desire to marry you.

And, honestly, I felt like a missed my opportunity to be a part of something that many other women participate it without question. ‘Cuz I mean, really, when else do you get an excuse like that? It definitely wasn’t the kind of thing I was going to go out and buy for myself. I felt like I was denying myself something that appealed to me for the sake of being “good queer feminist”. I was a little sad that I had started to dislike a part of myself so much. But it’s hard to make peace with the idea that accepting and loving a part of yourself is wrapped up in acquiring a piece of jewellery. You know?

Obviously, I over-thought the heck out of this particular issue.

Where I’m going with this (in Part Two) is the ensuing debacle, and eventual happy resolution, that is my second ring. But I’d REALLY love to hear what other people’s feelings are on this subject. Who has rings, and what kind? How did you decide what to do about them? What, if any, conflicting feelings did you encounter around rings and your queerness?

Find out why this wedding cost 20% less than it could have...

I (and my better half) were reflecting on our wedding planning recently, specifically the budgeting aspect. It’s not part of the process that I really blogged about when we were planning, except for one of my first blogs where I talked about the particular challenge of budgeting for a wedding in New York City. What Bek and I were reflecting on was whether or not we felt that anything from our wedding felt missing, or inadequate, or “cheap”, because of any of our cost cutting measures. And we both agreed that we thought we had done a good job of balancing the splurges and the saves, while satisfying everything we wanted and that we thought would make our guests feel like they had had a really special experience.

Everyone, no matter the size of their budget, wants to get the most bang for their buck. Maybe most of you are already aware of some of these, but I still thought it might be useful. Some of these things were stuff we hadn’t considered till we started talking to our vendors and really brainstorming together for ways to save money. So I put together some tips based on a few of the things we did to try to save as much as possible.

CATERING: Most people know that a buffet can cost you less than a plated dinner. But if you don’t want a buffet because you want your guests seated and served, there’s another way to save money: family-style! A big portion of the cost for catering comes from the rentals and servers, which is part of why plated dinners cost more – more dishes for courses, and more servers to get guests served quickly. But with family style, you need less rentals and less servers. And it also just costs less for food, too. So we ended up saving quite a bit of money by having dinner family-style. *Bonus: It’s fun! And get’s people talking more. Sharing food brings people together, kind of the point of the whole wedding thing, right? Other than getting married…*

RENTALS: Hopefully everyone knows you can save money if you arrange rentals yourself rather than let the caterer take care of it. So that’s a great option for those who can make that work for them. Our priorities were such that this option didn’t work for us. But, even if arranging your own rentals doesn’t work for you there are things you can do to save on rentals. If your caterer is a restaurant, or associated with a restaurant, ask them if it is any cheaper to use the restaurant’s stock of plates (or other dishware) instead of their rental stock – that alone saved us about $500 . Other things you can do to save on rentals: if your ceremony and reception are in the same place ask the caterer if time allows for them to use the same chairs for the ceremony and the dinner, the price increase to have a slightly nicer-looking chair is less than the cost of the chepest chair+a chair cover, bigger tables means fewer tables so if space allows to sit larger groups you can save a bit, coloured linens cost more so if you’re heart is set on having your wedding colours as part of your dining then consider using other table accents for the colour and save money with the white linens, ask about having an outside source do the bar glassware (more on this in the bar section), and always check first to see what the venue has available – even if they don’t have everything, don’t assume you’ll need to rent everything, so be sure to take full inventory of what the venue can provide (right down to the coffee cups and salt and pepper shakers, cuz the littlest things add up when you’re renting).

FLOWERS/DECORATION: I know flowers are traditional and are so often an assumed part of the wedding, but I still urge people to consider going flowerless. Yes, it’s greener and more ethical (though there are local and ethical flower options out there, they often cost more), but it’s also cheaper! And can be more practical. For myself, I loved that I had all the centrepieces, boutonnieres, arrangements, etc. ready to go and sitting in a box long before wedding day – I didn’t have to count on a delivery being on time, or having to do arrangements myself the day-of, or not knowing if they would look exactly the way I wanted. I did it myself, got exactly what I wanted, and saved money and stress (I realize for some doing it yourself is more stress, but when it came to having a destination wedding, the more control I had over what happened the better – even if it meant more work ahead of time). So consider non-flower alternatives like paper, feathers, arranged objects, etc. There are a million great ideas out there. If you do plan on doing flowers, there is still stuff you can do to save money. Obviously, if you or a friend/family member have the creative touch, then buying your flowers in bulk and doing it yourself saves you. But if that’s time or skills you don’t have, then work with your florist to cut the cost: use in-season flowers, consider minimalist arrangements, provide your own vases for centrepieces and arrangements (which you can find cheap at dollar stores, Ikea, or second-hand), consider flowering plants, and see if alternative arrangements like wreaths, boughs, or garland are more affordable. If you need to cut some costs, consider how many people really need flowers: does the whole wedding party and family need bouquets, corsages, and boutonierres? Maybe there are alternatives that can save a bit.

BAR: And open bar is going to cost you more than a limited bar, which is going to cost you more than a wine-and-beer bar, which is going to cost you more than a dry bar. We went the limited route and had “signature cocktails”, which seems pretty popular these days. But we didn’t want people to feel limited, so we specifically chose cocktails whose ingredients could be used for other drinks when combined with the non-alcoholic drinks available. So those who wanted our cocktails could have them, and those who didn’t actually had a decent selection of other drinks to be made. And we skipped the champagne for the toast (we just didn’t have a toast, it wasn’t a big deal for us. PLUS, that saves you money on the rentals to not have the champagne glasses). And did you know, there are services that JUST do bar? Look around, because some of those services will do your bar service for less than the caterers. And if your caterers are good people to work with, they won’t have a problem with this. So don’t assume your bar and food need to come from the same place. OR you can buy the alcohol yourself and hire your own server, OR if you have a good caterer they can help arrange for you to buy the alcohol yourself and they serve it. That’s what we did – we had a great arrangement where we bought the alcohol, but they provided wine which meant that they had a licence to serve alcohol for the event and could serve our booze. So we used their bartender, and their bar supplies, and they provided all the non-alcoholic beverages, but we got to buy the booze and save a LOT of money. I think we saved about $3000 this way, seriously.

VENUE: We’ve all heard about how the day of the week can affect your cost (Saturday being the most expensive), but the truth is it can be hard to have a wedding on a day that isn’t Saturday. We considered other options, but ended up going with the Saturday. BUT we picked avenue where the price is the same – yes, they are actually out there. My biggest piece of advice, though, is look to unconventional venues. There are lots of places that have the space, and capability, to host a wedding but that typically don’t. Our was in a loft that was mainly used for commercial and fashion photography. They had weddings and special events there sometimes, so they were knowledgeable to work with, but that wasn’t their main function so their pricing was lower than the other lofts we looked at that were used just for special events and weddings. So consider alternative spaces: studios, libraries, stores (seriously – we almost had ours in a cool old bookstore that rented it’s space for special events, but it wasn’t big enough for us), piers, private galleries (often more affordable than the big ones or museums), schools, and warehouses. I actually read an article the other day about funeral homes hosting weddings, and cheaper that your average chapel or hall! We purposefully picked a place that required little decoration to achieve what we wanted. And we made a point of having everything in the same place, so that we saved on the cost of transporting people (buses are expensive!), and we could condense the whole thing into a shorter period of time.

Anyone else have tips for ways to save money? What are those things you’re doing/have done to keep on budget?

Image by Kelly Prizel Photography

*Not a real fight!*

Eeeeep. We just started our third year last month! And you know what? Even though we don’t have any real problems in our relationship right now, I kind of understand why the third year is where things get tricky.

The high of getting married can only last so long, then it’s followed by the exciting new adventure that is being married. And then you just are married – it has a little less novelty, is a little less shiny, and things start to normalize a bit. It’s the “honeymoon is over” stage. It happens, and it’s pretty normal.

For us, we’re still a lot like giddy highschoolers in our relationship: lots of bordering-on-inappropriate PDAs, ridiculous pet names, saying I love you about a hundred times a day, squishy love-sick cuddle talk,  and reminding one another how much we like being married to each other several times throughout the day. But we are both very aware that, even if we’re lucky enough for this type of behaviour to last forever, it’s not the be-all and end-all of what a healthy marriage looks like. Things have changed, things will continue to change, and if we work hard at being married, that change can be a good thing.

Going through periods where life gets more complicated, and encountering challenges together for the first time, can test your relationship. So can just spending more time together (that thing you used to think was such a cute little habit might start to annoy the crap out of you after the 3oooth time they do it). And new phases of life can show you a side of the person you married that you’d never seen before.

And fights will be had.

And mistakes will be made.

And if you’re smart you’ll look at all this as another part of the exciting adventure that is sharing you’re life with another person. At least that’s what I like to think. I know that marriage is going to take a lot of work, and I know that the two of us are going to come up against a lot of tough stuff in our time together – but I like to think that that is kind of exciting in itself. I’ve got this kick-ass partner I get to go through life with, and if we really make a point to stay a strong team we’re going to do some awesome stuff.

I don’t have any secrets to a long and happy marriage – two years does not an expert make. But I do know what it feels like to be standing on the edge of the marital “Whoa, this sh*t is getting REAL!” as your newlyweddedness starts to fade away. For me, growing out of the newlyweddedness actually feels pretty cool. We are starting to figure out how to better communicate with one another, see those areas of our relationship that are going to require more attention, get to know how to better work with each other, and understand how to identify problems. We don’t necessarily know what to do about all these things but I think creating a very self-aware relationship is a really good first step, especially this early on. And as long as we both stay actively engaged in trying to figure it all out, I think we’ll be fine.

I think the challenges of year three (and every year after it!) are exciting! I’m excited to learn how to be the best support person I can be. And how to give my marriage the attention it needs when life is pulling us in 18 different directions. And how to fight with one another more productively. And how to really work as a team when it comes to raising our family and creating a home. We’re gonna AWESOME the heck outta this marriage!

Bring it, year three!

Most of you have probably heard about the It Get’s Better, but for those who aren’t familiar…

When in 2010 we saw far too many devastating stories of LGBTQ youth committing suicide, Dan Savage (of Savage Love) started a campaign that encouraged people to tell their stories, mostly via video, to LGBTQ youth in order to send them one clear message – It gets better. The response has been overwhelming, with over 1000 videos submitted from LGBTQ and allied individuals around the world, including notable activists, celebrities, and politicians. But most moving are the stories from the everyday people, the LGBTQ individuals who are living happy lives after overcoming the multitude of struggles that come with a lack of acceptance.

I encourage all of you to visit the site, and get involved. It’s important that we share the message to LGBTQ youth that they are not alone, that there are people out there who will accept them for who they are, that life is worth living, and that IT GETS BETTER!

If you have made a video, please share it with us! Leave the link in the comments, or post it to our Facebook page.

I think that we were like so many other queer couples are when faced with weddings – we know what we DON’T want. The list of things we DIDN’T want could have stretched on for miles. It’s so much easier to identify what you don’t like, what you reject because it’s heteronormative, what is too traditional to feel right, what doesn’t suit you as individuals or couples. If you’re a couple like us who overthinks everything and can sometimes have knee-jerk rejections of all things heteronormative, it’s easy to get bogged down in the DON’Ts. And while you should question the things that wedding traditions and the wedding market say you need and learn to identify and stay strong on the issues that you know you don’t want, it can all get you into a negative mindset. And it can be tough to dig yourself out of that negative mindset of the unending list of DON’Ts and find a way to keep things positive and talk about your DOs.

As we’re all breaking new ground as queer couples planning weddings, there is little for us to point to to say we DO want this and we DO want that (that’s part of why a resource like So You’re EnGayged is so important!).

So for us the biggest favour we could do ourselves was really start from the basics. I mean the very very bottom of the basics. We scrapped the whole idea of a wedding altogether! In an earlier post about having two weddings, I talked a little about how we initially rejected the idea of this big event being a wedding at all. But what I want to talk about here a bit more is how scrapping the “wedding” idea was actually a really productive tool for us in planning what ultimately was, of course, a wedding!

We cleared the slate, and made only two lists of DOs. We asked ourselves two questions: What do we want to experience? and What do we want to have? Then we each answered both of those questions with the simplest answers we could come up with. For example…

What do you want to experience: ceremonial recognition of our marriage by those present, get to know my spouse’s family/friends, opportunity to share my feelings about my spouse publicly, providing the people I love with a relaxed and fun time, hand-crafting things because I enjoy it, etc.

What do you want to have: one place in which to have everything happen, close friends and family present (in as large a number as possible), unlimited quantities of high-quality food and alcohol, pictures to remember the day by afterwards, etc.

I know that those might seem like ridiculously large, vague questions that can open you up to a million overwhelming answers, but when you focus on answering as simply as possible… you end up with a guide of ONLY what is critically important to you. And when your planning becomes a series of tasks to satisfy the simplest form of what’s important to you, it becomes a lot easier and more meaningful than trying to plan the perfect wedding as prescribed by Martha Stewart Weddings or The Knot.

Of course the actual planning is a lot harder than just that, and there are about 1000 ways to satisfy any one of those answers. But this was a good exercise in learning not to jump right to questions like “What caterer should we pick?”, and instead spend time thinking about what you want the experience of your wedding to be so that there is a space for you to question whether or not you even want food!

Problem #1: They say you only need one form per family, and then define family as people sharing the same address. Isn’t that just a little bit confusing? Because roommates share an address, but aren’t considered family. If they aren’t to be on the same form, that’s fair enough, but why then have the “same address” as the definition if that’s not actually true? Heterosexual common-law partners do qualify as family, but a same-sex couple does not. And of course, a same-sex married couple is, well, not married, right? Note that none of these things are said anywhere on any form or sign, all anything says is “same address”. So, the first time you go through US customs and try to obediently follow their directions by putting both of you on one form… Yeah, they don’t like that!

Thankfully, the first guy we encountered in this situation was very nice about, and patiently explained to us how we weren’t considered married, or anything really, and the “same address” thing didn’t apply in our situation so we needed to each have our own forms. It was a good thing we had a kind and patient person to be the one explaining how our marriage was non-existent once we entered the country, cuz that was more than a little upsetting the first time. He was very nice to us, and provided us with a second form and let us fill it out right there with him. And, he was good enough to explain to us what we should do in the future – fill out two forms, but still approach the customs official at a counter together (usually if you aren’t family you have to go seperately), and when asked what our relationship is to each other explain that we are married IN CANADA. Apparently it’s important to be clear that you acknowledge to them that you know you aren’t married according to US law. So this is the formula we’ve used every time, at both the airport and when crossing by land in the car. So far so good, though it kind of feels like a little piece of you dies every time you jump through those particular hoops. And it goes smoothly unless we encounter…

Problem #2: Bek confuses people when it comes to dealing with government issued ID. It plays one of two ways – the customs officer sees a guy approaching them, looks at the ID that says female, does a double-take, then kind of frowns OR they immediately recognize that it’s someone whose not following the gender rules and they get pissed off before we even get to the counter. And then they’ll be grumpy and ask extra questions about where we’re going and what we’re doing and who we are. They’ve always let us through in the end, but it always really stressful and we just hold our breath waiting for the time they pull us for more serious questioning that goes on our records or even deny us entry. This situation is particularly stressful when it’s in the scenario of…

Problem #3: When we go to other countries and travel back through the US to get to Canada, we have to go through different lines at customs. I have to go to the line for foreigners and Bek has to go to the line for citizens – from Canada this isn’t the case because US customs is actually in the Canadian airport and there’s just one line for everyone, but when landing in a US airport from a country other than Canada there is a seperate line for citizens). When you don’t have any rights for being together in the country you are trying to enter, it is really tough to be seperated from each other. If I get a particularly jerky official who decides to not let me through for whatever reason, and Bek get’s through to the other side, we don’t quite know if she’d be allowed to get back to me because we aren’t family. And same goes for if a customs official gives Bek trouble (like in Problem #2). Sometimes we can’t even see each other from wherever we each go to line-up, so we don’t know what’s what until we both get to the other side and are much relieved.

I know that given the situation so many LGBTQ couples accross the world are in, we are very, very fortunate. We live in a country that ensures us full and equal rights, and even while things are not 100% perfect in the US (where we spend a lot of time and is my spouse’s country of citizenship) it is still so much better than in so many countries. But nonetheless we do have challenges that frustrate us, complicate living our lives together, and to be perfectly honest just downright hurt us at an emotional level. The scariest part for us is that because we are citizens of two different countries, we know that major problems in some travel situations could jeopardize us being able to be together.

And this makes us very aware of just how difficult international travel on a larger scale is when queer and married. We’ve applied the rules given to us by our first kindly customs officer in the US when we’ve travelled to a few other countries and it has worked well, but these have all been in fairly tourist-heavy areas and situations so I don’t think it would be quite as simple everywhere. We really like travelling and plan to do a lot throughout our marriage, but just the other day we were talking about how there were places in the world we’d love to visit but know we could never be comfortable or feel safe in. And to be honest, in some of instances, I wouldn’t know how to navigate the customs entry situation AT ALL. That’s one of the things that straight couples don’t need to consider when they travel, and they don’t have to consider what the repercussions might be if something were to happen to one of them while travelling and their relationship wasn’t recognized in the country they are visiting. I’d be really curious to hear other people’s travel experiences and how they’ve dealt with their LGBTQ status and/or LGBTQ relationship when trying to enter, or while visiting, foreign countries.

This photo is a LIE! We weren't engaged... and never have been!*

I like that it happened that way. It’s much more in keeping with our “relationship personality”. This doesn’t mean we aren’t romantic – we’re pretty sappy, mushy, overly romantic types who believe our falling in love is like every love song come true. But this is one of those things that I think snuck up on us pretty early in our relationship and it needed to be a mutual decision come to through good communication.

And yes, I realize that you can have a mutual decision come to through good communication AND have a proposal moment – but when we decided for sure that we were getting married, we were going to do it nine days later! So, getting married jumped pretty quickly to the top of the list and hainvg some kind of proposal just sort of fell of the list altogether.

Now, that’s not to say we didn’t have some sweet moments surrounding our decision to get married.

A few months into our relationship, we started to talk seriously about our future and what we wanted to be doing. We had a bit of a time-sensitive pressure situation in that we had both packed up our lives and started travelling together (with friends) and once the traveling was over neither one of us had anything to go back to: no apartments, no jobs, no home cities even. And we were in a position where I couldn’t live in Bek’s country. So of course we had to have some conversations about what we were going to try to do about being together. Once we diecided we wanted to live together once we were done traveling, I was feeling pretty comfortable about the seriousness of our relationship and was more than satisfied with how we were doing.

Then after a particularly fantastic night in Santorini, Greece, Bek asked if in a year from that day we felt the way we did at that moment would I want to get married. Kind of like a proposal, but a bit more like an inquiry into my interest in marrying. A sort of pre-proposal. Bek had a theory about needing to live with someone through four seasons in order to truly know them. Fine by me! This was the first time we’d talked about marriage, so I was thrilled! I was always the “I don’t need to get married” type, but that didn’t mean wouldn’t have liked to get married. So of course I said yes! And we talked a little more about it over the next couple of days, then kind of tucked it away as something we would revisit in a year’s time.

The night Bek gave me a marriage inquiry...

Fast forward to only three months later, and we’d moved to Canada. We were starting to make our long-term plans in my country and we run into the immigration issue. There were several options for Bek immigrating to the country, we didn’t NEED to get married. And we were very firm that we did not want to get married for immigration reasons. But it definitely got us talking about it a lot sooner than the one-year-away date we’d agreed upon. And we both had to admit to each other that… we really wanted to be married to each other! And once we got to thinking about it, we figured why wait! It was coming close to Christmas, and we were going to be spending it just the two of us with no families, so we thought what better way to spend the holidays than by getting married! We bounced the idea around for a few days, kind of unsure if we should jump in. Then we were sitting in what’s now become “our” diner, having breakfast and something just clicked. We both both just got too damn giddy about it to hold back anymore, so we had kind of a “Let’s do it!” moment! We walked the two blocks to city hall and got our marriage license right after breakfast, and booked our ceremony there for nine days later on Christmas Eve.

So that’s it. Two pretty special non-proposal moments. I love the way we did things!

I have to admit – I thought not having a proposal wasn’t that unusual, especially amongst LGBTQ couples. But in reading blogs and such when I started planning our second wedding, I started to feel like I was the only one who didn’t do or have a proposal. Anyone else out there not have a proposal involved in their engagement or wedding process? I’d love to hear about others’ experiences in non-traditional ways of initiating their engagement/marriage.

*first photo courtesy of Kelly Prizel Photography