Posts Tagged ‘Family’

Family Boundaries and your Wedding

Posted on February 24th, 2011 by cynthia. 15 Comments

cynthia
Bio: Quirky, Jane of All Trades with natural hair and a penchant for dresses and high heeled shoes. I met my baby off of one of those free dating websites in March and we bonded over vegetarianism and our mutual love of Brazil. Flash forward and here we are and I couldn't be happier. Life is short and so am I (she's not but that's okay).

I briefly mentioned before that I don’t have the best relationships with my dad’s extended family. In fact, I really have no relationship with them and truth be told, it doesn’t bother me at all. Being that all of them except one claim religion when it is convenient for them, I’m sure they would love nothing more to decline any invitation of mine if given the opportunity.

Yet, my issue doesn’t stem from them but more from my dad’s second wife. I will refrain from going into detail about how I truly feel about her because I really could go on all day. This is going to be a totally random post but one that I have been marinating on a lot lately, I just want to make sure I don’t sound like I’m entering bridezilla territory. Okay, so I see my dad’s second wife as unstable and our relationship is shaky, which is putting it nicely. As I discussed before, my father agreed to come to wedding and perform his ‘fatherly’ duties, which makes me very happy but that also means she’ll be coming along for the ride. I know that the wedding won’t be an all day affair but she just really knows how to ruin a damn good time. I have witnessed this numerous times and I just know the type of person that she is.

For example, when I went up there in December – she kept complaining about how I ruined her entire “wedding”. I use quotes because they were already married since they went off and eloped and now she wanted to be queen for a day. Now, when they had their church wedding, I was in a very unhappy place. I lost my mother to cancer less than a year ago, I was in Georgia alone and things between my father and I were touchy. I actually didn’t want to be in any pictures and tried my best to stay out of them but from what she said, “I ruined everything!”

(more…)

Posted in , 15 Comments »

Coming Out As Engaged Over the Holidays

Posted on January 13th, 2011 by cynthia. 6 Comments

cynthia
Bio: Quirky, Jane of All Trades with natural hair and a penchant for dresses and high heeled shoes. I met my baby off of one of those free dating websites in March and we bonded over vegetarianism and our mutual love of Brazil. Flash forward and here we are and I couldn't be happier. Life is short and so am I (she's not but that's okay).

As I briefly mentioned before, my family is very religious. My dad especially as he was born and raised in Macon, Georgia, growing up he was involved in the Southern Baptist faith until his mother switched the entire clan (all 7 of them!) to the Seventh Day Adventist faith which he still upholds to this very day. Not only that, he is very well known in his church and he holds multiple positions, one of which is preaching. Yea, y’all – I’m a preacher’s daughter – ’nuff said, right?

When my mother passed away 5 years ago  my father remarried to someone who is also in the SDA religion. So when I decided to go up to Maryland to visit and tell my father of my pending nuptials, I was both nervous and pensive because knowing my father I really never know how he’ll take anything. Even though, I love my father; he is kinda square and he is not very welcoming to the gay lifestyle. Growing up, my dad was pretty homophobic, so I didn’t ever fully come out until my mother was sick in the hospital. Since then, we barely – if ever – discussed it. (more…)

Posted in , 6 Comments »

Outpouring of Love

Posted on January 12th, 2011 by Jessica. 5 Comments

Jessica
Bio: I am a thirty old, east coast, italy loving, wedding photographer who has been with my partner Meridyth for five years. Meridyth and I own a townhouse together, have three wonderful kitties, and a great life! Now we are looking forward to celebrating with family and friends next October on our next step in life together.

When I asked Mer to marry me and we told our family and friend they were excited but also a little hesitant.  For almost all of them except for our friends this wedding will be the first gay wedding they attend and may ever attend.

Meridyth’s family is also known for pitching in and making things happen and are known to throw great parties. However, myself being stubborn and not liking to ask for help and also figuring that they were uncomfortable with the whole wedding itself, I figured I would do everything on my own including figuring out the music, cake, chuppah, dishes, decorations, etc…

My mom is definitely going to help me figure some of it out since we will be using some of her very much appreciated money, but I need to come to her with ideas and decisiveness that was honestly making me a nervous wreck.  Hence my post about budgets sucking.

Then came Christmas and I started talking to one of Meridyth’s cousins who offered her knowledge and expertise and said she wanted to be our wedding planner for free and that I wouldn’t be alone in finding vendors and making other decisions.  I couldn’t believe how excited she was for us and how much she wanted to help!

(more…)

Posted in , 5 Comments »

Interfaith Holidays

Posted on January 7th, 2011 by Wasabi. 9 Comments

Wasabi
Wedding Date: Spring 2011
Bio: I just finished up my MBA while planning our wedding, learning about Judaism, and hitting the ski slopes at every opportunity. My fiancée, Ginger, helps disabled kids here in New Orleans when she’s not reading or snowboarding. We are getting married on May 21, 2011 at a funky art museum in a traditional Jewish ceremony followed by an unconventional wedding reception.

The holidays can be really tough on couples, whether you are celebrating the same religions or not. For Ginger and I, the holidays are colored by trying to figure out this interfaith family we have created. Ginger was raised Jewish, and I’m converting. On the Hanukkah side of things, the holidays are really exciting to me. It’s a time to explore my new faith and culture with the yummiest fried foods and big roasts. Christmas was always about food and cooking for me growing up, and it’s a pretty easy switch to put that energy into latkes, prime rib, and rugelach. Hanukkah, like New Year’s, is our holiday, just the two of us and our friends.

Last year, we finally forged the holiday compromise: Thanksgiving would be with Ginger’s family, and Christmas would be with my parents. It was so hard to make that compromise- Thanksgiving would never be the same for me. For Ginger, Christmas had to be celebrated every year, something she had tried hard to avoid her whole life. It seemed so difficult that the hard stuff had to end with the compromise, but unfortunately, it doesn’t. Every year still brings with it little deaths and little births. A new family tradition for Hannukah, followed by the reminder that Christmas music wouldn’t be appropriate to play in our Jewish home. “Silent Night,” my childhood lullaby, doesn’t fit into my home life anymore. And, the smell of an evergreen won’t ever be welcoming me back from a long, winter day.

Then Christmas comes, and we fly to be with my parents. It’s like being a visitor at a Christmas celebration, it’s wonderful, but it isn’t ours. We have a Jewish home, and yet, an interfaith family. We dug through the emotions that come with each holiday season this year by attending my conversion class together, and then hashing out our feelings over bagels and lox. I don’t think this will be that last challenging holiday, but talking it over seems to help.

Posted in , 9 Comments »