But, what has not been a sad time is connecting with all of you and getting your advice from what should go in our water glasses to questions of tradition and etiquette.  It was also cool to get married; for real and all kinds of legal.

Well, before I get to the my wedding planning/blogging experience precis, I thought I would share some honeymoon pictures and thoughts.

We went to Aruba for our honeymoon and it was amazing.  We had a room right on the beach and there was a hammock right outside of our room.  The water was warm and the sun was warmer.   It was the perfect type of vacation after months of stressful planning.

Dave of course needs a good book to read when traveling, and Betty White’s bio did the trick!

This is taken from the lounge chair right outside our room.  Dave does have a good eye for pictures!

If you remember my post about our Long Island Thunderstorm, this is the handmade cabana outfit my childhood neighbor made us.  Dave has a coordinating  one!

One of the coolest things about Aruba is that the sun sets at approximately the same time every day of the year, right around 6:30 p.m.  This was one of the best parts of the trip;  grabbing a cool drink and watching the sun set.

The north side of the island is very rocky and has a desert feel.  We went horse back riding along this area and along the beach.  It was, for sure, a highlight of the trip. Although the trotting does damage a boy in a particular way that lingers.

Yes, yes, the perfunctory write-in-the-sand-to-mark-the-occasion picture.  But, hey, when in Rome, or whatever.

When we got home from the honeymoon, the last thing we promised ourselves is that we would go out to a nice dinner to bookend the whole experience.  This was nice, because we had enough time away from the stress of it all to really reflect on the whole experience. Dave looks pretty hot, and relaxed, right?

My Final Thoughts

To change the tone here a little bit, I wanted to talk about some more serious final thoughts about our wedding and marriage.

First, one thing I never did talk about here, was right before I started blogging, we lost our dog, Mandy.  It was sudden, and we planned to have her in the wedding in some way.  She was there though, in both spirit and in picture.  Often when I wrote blogs here I did open up about my feelings on a variety of issues, but understood that people really wanted to hear about things connected to the wedding planning process.  But since I feel a bit more connected to you all now, I thought I would share a tribute video we made for her.  I think in part I did not talk about her because of how much it still really hurts to not have her in our lives.

Our Mandy Baby

Beyond the fact that I LOVE this picture, I also think it sums up all of our reasons for having our wedding: to be surrounded by the ones we love.  Save for one nephew, this is the totality of both of our families.  I am not sure I can fully appreciate nor articulate what it meant to us to be within and around so much love, and not just for that day.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

But the reality is that we are now onto the married part of the wedding planning.  I read/heard the following the other day that went something like “people should put more thought and planning into their marriage than their wedding day.”  This is so true.  Because it really is just one day.  One amazing, beautiful day, but still, just 6 or so concentrated hours.  It is the happily-ever-after part that I think people forget to worry about.  And it ain’t easy, for sure.

Dave and I are lucky that we found each other and we have worked on our marriage, and settled into our life, well before we got married.   I am sure marriage advice abounds, but if I could offer one, succinct thing, it would be this: find the reason why you fell in love, and remember that in times when your present feelings of love might be otherwise.  Nothing about the pairing of two people is easy.  As a breed we tend to be selfish and unable to recognize another person’s reality.  And while the idea of two people spending the rest of their life together is beautiful  in the abstract, people have to be more practical  in the specific to make it work.

What I think the below picture illustrates is what I think makes love and life work.  To steal a scene from Love! Valoure! Compassion!:  (said by Bobby, who is blind in the movie, from the back seat of Perry and Aurthur’s car) “I think…you love each other very much. I think you will stick it out, whatever. I think right now you’re holding hands. I think that when Perry has to take his hand from yours, Arthur, to steer in traffic, he puts it back in yours as soon as he can. I think this is how you always drive. I think…this is how you go through life.”

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

So, I bid you ado, from this wedding planning journey, now onto our life fulfilling one.  If you care, please follow me at My Parent’s Son, my blog I post to from time to time. You can also follow me on Twitter:   http://twitter.com/MichaelMancini5

It has been what I can only classify as a pleasure to spend some time with you all.

Thank you.

First, the candy bar.  Instead of buying favors, we thought it would be cool to do a candy bar, plus it also worked as a pop of color.  We had a huge martini glass that had yellow and green ribbons for tying up the bag.  On the bag we put stickers that we had made of our monogram from our Save the Dates cards.  But I am pretty sure no one left with any bags of candy, because people were really chowing down on the candy at the wedding.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Yes they do make orange licorice, who knew?!?  I guess they tasted good, we never got to try!

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

The wonderfully nostalgic tags were made by our wedding planner Kate from Lovewell Design.  She also surprised us with these cute straws which she put at the bar.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Another detail of the wedding was a DIY photo booth.  The hotel had an old phone closet that has been turned into a toy closet.   So Dave and I thought it would be fun to set up our MacBook so people can go in the closet and take pictures or videos.  And to model it after our save the dates, we had a dry erase board so people could write us notes for the pic.  Below is the sign we made to denote the photo booth and below the below is some amazing photos from our friends and family.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Clearly these are our photogs from Calypso Rae Photography.

These are our Lesbians and our friend Chris…Sue, in the middle, is 9 months pregnant here, and looking fine!!  For those of you who have read my blog posts from the start you will get the reference.

These are our friends Mike and Dawn.  I grew up with them both, and they ended up marrying each other.  I just love the naturalness of this pic.  Plus their son was just on the Martha Stewart Show!

And these are our Asians (clearly we like to label our friends!)  I may or may not have a crush on the boy in the pic…but don’t tell anyone, okay?  She is pretty darn hot, too!

And here Dave is with his sister…if you notice, he is no longer wearing his shirt and tie…yes, he did decide to change into his PJs at the end of the night, but changed right back before I saw him!!

And then, our escort cards, hand printed by our friend Chris, pictured above with our lesbians…amazing, right?

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

As you may have deduced, our table markers were Gay Icons.  This was Dave’s idea, and I just love it.  What we found great was people chatting during cocktail hour about whose table they were at; many were mad that they were not at Betty White’s table…she is even popular in picture form!!

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Of course, our table was the Judy Garland table…I mean…there is no other choice! Our center pieces, and a 25 foot banister garland, was by Flowers Down Under.  She was amazing, she kept it clean and stylish.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

So this is my penultimate blog post!  I can’t believe it.  The next blog post will be a retrospective of this whole process, plus some honeymoon pics!

There was various points during the night that I was overwhelmed with the totality of the day, particularly when we were doing traditional things that we have watched at every wedding.  From our entrance into the reception (which was insane; to walk down the stairs and see so many screaming people all taking pictures…we now understand how the celebs feel…well, understand better) to our first dance.  There is something that is all consuming about these moments that we could not fully experience it until it is all done and we revisited it in pictures and videos.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

After our first dance, we had our mom and son dance.  Dave danced to “Baby Mine” from Dumbo sung by Bette Midler.  There was not a dry eye in the house.  I love this picture of Dave and his mom, it really does capture well the tenderness of the moment.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

I, of course, could not do just one song with my mom, so I did a mash up of “Puff the Magic Dragon”, which was my lullaby song when I was a kid and “In the Mood” by Glenn Miller.   The latter song is a staple at any of our family weddings, and when I was a kid I used to always do the Lindy with my mom to this song, so it was fitting.  She did not know about either song and was very surprised.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

This is one of my favorite shots from the wedding, I think it is while Dave and I are dancing.  There is just something about it.  We had told the photographer that we wanted her to have a photo-journalistic eye when taking pictures, and I think she hit the mark here.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Okay so this has to be the cutest picture of my nephew Jack.  He is such a sweet kid.  When we were home over the summer he asked “Uncle Michael, who are you marrying?” and I said “Dave” to which he replied “Yessssss!!” with the same level of jubilation as a kid on Christmas morning at the unwrapping of a long sought after gift.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

In the next blog I am going to talk about all the little details of the day, from our table markers, to our DIY photo booth, candy bar and everything else in between.

When Dave and I sat down with the judge– who was very cool, and said “this is my first gay wedding” to which we said “ours too!”  — we told him that he did not need to spend a lot of time up there because most the ceremony has been planned, he just needs to do what he needs to do to make it legal.  But we did tell him that we wanted some sayings that are common at weddings.  This may seem perfunctory, but that is not bad sometimes.  It reminded people, if anyone needed reminding, that this wedding was just as legitimate as any other.  As one of our friend’s husband remarked “I wish people that do not agree with same-sex marriage could be here today to see this!” And while we loved the words of our friend Urvish, this “add-on” as I kept referring to it as, did add more depth to the ceremony.  Speaking of Urvish, we cannot fully thank him, nor explain how amazing it was for him to perform the ceremony for us.  He is, beyond handsome, one of the smartest people we know.  Anyone watching from afar would think he was an old hat at this, but he wasn’t, but as usual, was graceful.   Again, our wedding planner Kate did such a nice job with staging the ceremony space; we especially love the wickers balls (insert whatever joke is appropriate here).

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

 Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

So we were fortunate enough to have our hotel room overlook the ceremony space, so we got to watch as everyone started to file in.  It was great to see people that we have not seen in a while, and get excited about spending some time with them.  We may or may not have been caught doing this.

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

So, to the sappy part of the day, Dave decided to sing me a song, “Come What May”, but he figured, from the start, that he would not be able to finish it, so he had our friend Phil serve as back up.  Dave was able to sing….the first verse, than slowly fell into his tears…Phil of course took over with no issue!

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

One of the other special parts of our ceremony was our friend Jackie Micieli-Voutsinas, one half of our lesbian duo, who sang before our wedding, sang “Marry Me” as we walked own the aisle, and also sang “What More Can I Say” during the ceremony.  She is by far one of the most talented musicians I know, she can sing, play: piano, guitar, mandolin among many other instruments.  She is also pretty damn hot, as seen below and, ahem, getting her Ph.D. at Syracuse University, and just became a mommy!

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Between the singing, which was important for us, we each had two friends do readings for us, we asked them to pick out whatever reading made them think of love and/or marriage.  They all were touching and showed that our friends took the time to find readings the were both meaningful and specific.  We also asked my neighbor from when I was a kid to do a reading from the bible. It was important to us to nod to our past, as we both grew up somewhat religious , and she picked such a great reading from the bible!

We also did a hand-fasting ceremony, which is an ancient Celtic tradition.  We really loved this part of the ceremony  because it was unique to us, and many people remarked on how special it was.   Also, the ribbon is kinda cool, right?  Go Jo-Ann Fabrics!!

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

And then, the big moment, the “We Dos”.  This was an amazing part the the experience, as I mentioned earlier.  It was also exciting to think about getting our drink on!

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Over the next several blog posts I’ll walk you through the various parts of the wedding, and then some honeymoon pics.

I first want to note that getting ready while someone is snapping pictures is kind of a surreal experience.  I felt like every time I went to do anything I had to check first with the photographer…thankfully we both watch Tyra enough to know how to catch the light!

I had gone back and forth about getting Dave a wedding gift, money was tight, but I wanted to do something, so after conversations  with our wedding planner Kate, from Lovewell Celebration Design, I decided to get him cuff links that I found on Etsy…he loved them! And I loved watching him open the box…even if he did say in jest, “but it is not diamonds!”

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

 Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

 Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Like I said previously a friend of mine who owns Every Day Bow Ties made my Bow Tie, seen above and in some pics below.  I can’t tell you how many times I went to Jo-Anne Fabrics to find the right pattern…I spent more time there in the past couple months than the entirety of my whole life!  But, I think I did pretty well.  He also made a pocket square from the same fabric that Dave wore.   Before the wedding we also took some pics with just us by Cazenovia Lake, and we love  how they came out. Next blog will be the cermony blog!

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

 Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

Photo by Calypso Rae Photography

We spoke recently in some friendly phone conversations. They called on my birthday and we caught up and laughed. I didn’t sense any shame or discomfort. I thought maybe this time was different. I never mentioned the wedding to them, preferring to enjoy the planning process and avoid excuses and arguments. Regretfully, I kept certain things from my parents because it made interacting with them easier. But it also probably allowed them to think that I might feel ashamed.

Now I just feel let down and angry. I cannot help but resent my sister right now. Thanks to Facebook, I am taunted by pictures of the new first home she just bought with her husband. Of course, my parents also took them out to dinner to celebrate and my sister shared photos of the gifts they showered them with. They not only attended her wedding but participated actively as parents of the bride. I’m pretty sure they also contributed financially, but I try not to torture myself with specifics.

Right after getting the world’s saddest RSVP, I called my sister because I still had not heard from her. I left her a quick voicemail saying that we needed to give a final headcount. Instead of having the courage to call back, she shot me a very short Facebook message simply stating that she had just settled on a house and was on a tight budget so they could not make it.

Not only did I attend my sister’s wedding, but I also acted as Maid of Honor – Well Matron, actually, even though no one referred to me that way (yet another way of pretending it’s not there). I watched my father walk her down the aisle and dance with her to a sappy song. I smiled as my mother beamed the entire day. I wrote a touching speech. I bought her some sexy negligee for her shower so I could really emphasize that I am the radical sister. I paid for the travel and the dress. I put Rose through so much discomfort and awkward moments. And the sad part is – I am not even asking for the same treatment. I don’t expect for them to renounce their strong religious beliefs. But I do want them to be present for me… for their daughter.  

I continue to affirm to myself that “life isn’t fair” and that I am so incredibly lucky to be surrounded by SO much love and support, including my other relatives. I know I don’t want the life that my sister has with my parents. However, there is something about the lack of your own parents in your life that is just heartbreaking. Even though I do not agree with their belief system at all and often don’t fully enjoy their company, I still love them. I know they love me, too, but it is not unconditional love. They want to sweep parts of me under a rug. They are happy and comfortable talking with me about my job and school and my birthday – but they refuse to accept that I am a lesbian and I am happily married. They want to pretend as though that part of me does not exist, which leads to countless mind games and mixed emotions.

I was really holding on to hope that this time they might come around. The last Thanksgiving we shared together was much less tense. We did not have any arguments about how I need to respect them by attending without Rose. You see, in my situation, they are fine with me but only “non-committed-lesbian” me. I refuse to let this happen anymore. I do not want to be disrespected. I realize now that I cannot let them make me feel ashamed for who I am.

Oddly, on top of feeling really sad, I also have a sense of relief. Now I don’t have to wait and wonder and can just get back to last minute planning. And at least now I know where I really stand with them. I mean, with how awkward things can be, do I really even want them at my wedding anyway? If they cannot support me, they should not be there. This is the situation that I am in and it is not going to change. Weddings really bring out people’s true colors but fortunately, this also means an outpouring of love and acceptance as well. I’ll choose to focus on that as we continue to plan. Less than 3 weeks away!

It’s been a bit of a one-woman show around here, and that number may be dropping to 0 after today’s post, at least until after the wedding. The sad news is that after our wedding, I think things are going to be super duper quiet around here at SYE. Now that we’re inside of 10 days until the wedding, things are getting pretty busy and I think for my own sanity (and sleep schedule) I need to reel it in a bit here at SYE until after the wedding. I think that any free time I have this week and next will be spent stringing bunting and writing names on escort cards, corralling out of town guests, or else neurotically rearranging our table assignments. The good news is that Michael should be back soon giving us a short series of wrap-up posts about his wedding last weekend! And more good news is that in a few weeks, I will be able to give you all the dirty details about our wedding next weekend plus our mini-moon trip after the wedding! I’ve been working on some DIY projects (the aforementioned bunting and escort cards) and would love to share them with you. Plus, we’ve been having those sort of fun but scary conversations about what it means to be married, how our relationship is doing now vs. when we met vs. what we hope it will be like in the first year of our marriage, and I’m curious about how other people *really* feel in the days before and after their wedding. And, once we get some fancy photos back I’d love to share them here in a modified “real wedding” since we’re not doing those so much anymore! In the mean time, if there are things you’d like to hear about my experience (or Michael’s) in the weeks after my wedding, let me know in the comments. Here’s to hoping we get through the next 10 days without too much chaos!!

“Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support. Marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition. It is undoubtedly for these reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a ‘civil right’. Without the right to marry, one is excluded from the full range of human experience.”

We also made a wedding registry with the Human Rights Campaign, to encourage guests to contribute to the ongoing support of LGBT rights in lieu of gifts; we’ll also be making our own gift to HRC instead of favors. And, we’ve been mindful to work with vendors who are LGBT-friendly and who have made extra efforts to use gender-neutral language in their documentation (though this is often a work in progress).

But I’ve been wondering if this is not enough – or too much??? How do others handle this, gay or straight? What else is out there? I’ve heard of the “White Knot” where couples hand out small white knots for guests to wear to support marriage equality and full equal rights. Other couples opt for a more rainbow-tastic color scheme to their weddings, while still others do nothing obvious at all other than the radical act of getting married.

So I’ve been wondering – what are you doing to honor marriage equality throughout your wedding process? Do you have any awesome ideas to share with us? How have your gestures towards equality been received by guests, family or friends? Do you think there is a place to get political during a wedding? Why or why not?  Let us hear it in the comments!!!

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the impact that So You’re EnGAYged had on my health. The site was (and is) awesome – it gave me so many opportunities to make new friends, learn new things about building a website, and be a part of a cause that I deeply care about. However, over the past year or so, all of this began to be overshadowed by one thing: awful, hurtful e-mails.

I anticipated getting some hate mail. Every website does! When we started SYE, we thought it would come in the form of bigoted comments, and we focused a ton on moderating thoroughly. But I was wrong. The hate mail wasn’t from homophobes or random readers. For every 100 awesome vendors that we talked to, there was one terrible email from a wedding vendor that left me in tears.

Rarely were these vendors bigots – I want to make that clear. The hate wasn’t about our cause or about the LGBT community. It was that these vendors weren’t getting their way, and they felt entitled. They didn’t recognize that we put our readers before our vendors – that readers are, and will always be, our #1 priority.

If we felt that a vendor’s website had heteronormative language on it, I’d ask them to revise it. If a vendor had no reviews on a third party website, I’d ask them to email us again when they did. We would never reject an applicant in these cases (it takes a LOT to get an official rejection from us), we would always ask them to revise and contact us again when it’s updated. We even offered a free guidebook to help them change any heteronormative language to inclusive language. We did everything we could to help vendors be good fits for the site in all the kind ways we could think of. For context, here is my form email to vendors who didn’t meet the inclusive language requirement:

Hello [Name] – Thanks so much for your application. I did notice that you have a few cases of heteronormative language (where it’s assumed that the reader or visitor is a part of a heterosexual couple) on your website, such as “[example copied from their site]“. We wrote a free guide on how to update your language to be more inclusive; could you please update your client-facing materials to be 100% inclusive and let me know when you’ve done so?

Thanks!
Lara

The nasty responses started with one or two that Kelly and I just laughed off. We believe in SYE and we believe that our rules are fair. I’m a pro at handling conversations politely and not playing a mean person’s game, and I took on the vendor communications. But as we continued and grew, we started getting more routine emails that weren’t real responses to the above message. They were more hateful, more nasty. The main kinds I’d receive were:

• “I’m gay, how DARE you not automatically accept me!”
• “I think you’re making up the word ‘heteronormative’! By eliminating the words ‘As the bride watches the groom walk down the aisle’ I will be offending straight people!”
• “You are straight. You have no idea what it means to be a part of this community, you bigot!”
• “Your site is TERRIBLE. I am withdrawing my application! How dare you say those things to me! YOU are TERRIBLE!”

Mostly, people just didn’t read the guidebook, and didn’t understand that “inclusive” language meant “applies to LGBT and straight couples alike”. Remember, these probably came in once or twice a month – not very much, right? But, like many of you already know, hateful words are much stronger than any other kind of word.

I might receive one of these emails, then receive another five emails from pleasant, terrific vendors. Not even twenty nice emails could alleviate the sadness and frustration I was feeling from the nastygrams. A few this year even had me questioning my self-worth – what was it I was doing to not be able to prevent these emails from coming in? I’d updated the vendor application countless times to make it super clear what our requirements were, even linking to the guidebook there. I felt totally worthless and like I’d failed. Nothing I could do could stop these words from appearing in my inbox. There was nothing I or others could do that would make me feel better after reading them.

I have Crohn’s disease, a chronic disease that is triggered by stress for me. After a week or so went by after a bad email, I’d start to forget about it. That was really the only thing that’d make me feel better. But still, my body wasn’t having it. As I continued to deal with random awful vendor emails, my Crohn’s would flare. No matter how positively/politely I thought I handled a response, I would still feel frustrated and upset. No matter how ludicrous a vendor’s words were, they still hurt.

I decided to write this post as a message to everyone, not just vendors. Everyone needs to remember how much their words have an effect. The internet can feel like a lovely, anonymous place where you can say what you want and you won’t see the impact it has on others. But it has a very real impact, one that for me was part of our July decision to stop working on real weddings and vendor listings.

I’m so glad that no vendors whose words stung would have made it near our vendor listings, and I’m so thankful for all of the terrific vendors who are up there. But health comes first, and our July decision has come with its own set of nastygrams from vendors (“but you should make an exception for ME!”). It’s reassured me that our decision was the right one.