When people ask us how we met, we always say, “There are two stories”

Dave’s story is as follows:  “Michael and I met at Fugazi, (a gay bar in Buffalo). He of course came over to me, since he was mesmerized by my pretty face, as most people are (Dave is given to hyperbolics). We exchanged information and chatted online for a little bit and then went on our first date at Butterwood Bakery.”

And like a well oiled comedic duo, me playing the straight man, I would say “We met on Gay.com”

My version is the correct one. And henceforth is the truth of our “Two stories, one heart.”

(I should note here the title of this blog is a play on something Dave coined when our “Lesbians”, Jackie and Sue, got married. In their card he wrote “Two Vaginas, one heart” Funny, truthful, and as poignant as Dave gets. )

When I first met Dave I was struck by his stature, his is, well, tiny.  About 5’5’ and all of 110 pounds, I on the other hand, well, am bigger than that.   I can’t say that it was love at first site, for sure I was attracted to him and we got on fine, but I think it took a little bit for things to blossom between us, but once it did, it grew strong.  We started to live together right before our one year anniversary.  I had just finished graduate school and needed to move off campus.   It all seemed natural, the progression of our relationship and love.

So, 3 years post, I started to think about spending my life with David.  The only litmus test I knew as appropriate for this was whether I could imagine my life without him, and simply, I couldn’t.    In a country that at present does not recognize, broadly, marriage between same-sex couples, it is hard to understand ourselves in the broader context of married people.   I get asked often, by well-meaning people, why have a ceremony, if it is not legal?  I understand what they mean, from a pragmatic perspective.  Oft times love is a public thing, be it the work desk photo, holding hands in a park or filling out a healthcare proxy form.  To that point, marriage is also public; it is about loving someone out in the open and who would not want that.  So to the question, the answer is why not?  Love, for any of us, is about creature comfort.  It is about understanding our own skin, wanting to live within it, and seeking someone to touch it and remind us of the beauty of life.   Marriage as the public affirmation of the former seemed like the appropriate next step for us.

I could assert, and have, that same-sex couples know a stronger kind of love, love got meeting adversity face-forward.  But that is an immature thing to think, assuming that couples of the opposite sex don’t ever face adversity; be it interracial, inter-religious, etc. So to refine it, I’d say that any love, which thrives amongst adversity, is fundamentally a strong love.  How a couple actualizes that love is their bag, but at its core, it is strong. This is all to say that I love Dave and am confident in our love and thus want to do what others have done and make it known to our world.

But first, of course, I would need to make it known to Dave.  So, I set out on the journey to propose to Dave.  With the help of my friend Ivey, I went to the mall and searched for the perfect ring. Of course, it caused me to have to navigate through the process of cocked heads when I said I need a man’s ring.  But all said it was a fairly straight forward process.

I wish I could report that when I asked Dave to marry me it was in some fantastical romantic way.  Me on bended knee, surrounded by the glow on candle light, and Dave, teary eyed and awe struck. That the acceptance of this token of my love and commitment was clear and he received this love without interruption. But, as we have a want to be, it was not romantic-al in the least, but it was us…which I imagine is what it should have been.

We were supposed to go to Butterwood, where we had our first date and I planned on asking him there, but due to a snow storm we did not go. In my impatient way, I could not wait any longer.  I had the ring for almost 2 weeks…and it was burning a hole in pocket.  So, me in my robe on that  Sunday evening, said “Dave can you come into the kitchen”  He did, and I gave him the ring and said “With expectations for the future” (don’t worry, he nor I know what that meant either). Then he turned and said to me “So are we engaged?” and I nodded. That is the long, short and in-between of it.

The wedding planning did not happen thereafter in earnest.  Although we did receive a wealth of congrats cards…a couple were the same, which made me wonder about the dearth of same-sex or gender neutral engagement cards.  But we strode forward, talking about it here and there, while starting our new life in Syracuse.

Our parents have always been okay with our sexuality. We have never known the feeling of disapproval.  But I would be lying or glossing over the truth, if I say that we did not have apprehensions about getting married.  We thought that it might be a road too far for some in our family members to go. It is one thing to accept people and another thing to go beyond your point of comfort.  Dave and I are both the only openly gay people in our respective families to get married, so for all it would be a new experience and this gave us pause.  We may not have categorized it that way, but in retrospect, I think it was more pronounced than at first glance.  But soon we learned that people were happy for us, not matter our categorization of their conservatism.

This reminds me of a funny story. My brother Matthew (I am the youngest of 5 boys, he is the 3^rd oldest), called me after my mom told him that I engaged to Dave.  He just did not know what to say, but said the following, which is about as sweet as any other sentiment he could have given “Hey Michael it is your brother Matt.  I wanted to call and say congrats, ahhh Ma told me, ah, you gave Dave, um ah, a promise ring.”  Given that is was not 1952 I am fairly positive I would not call it that, but it made me feel good, and loved, that he, and the rest of my family, were genuinely happy for us.

Also, as part of my own process of thinking about a wedding, I come back to my own issues of struggling with how I do gay.  I worry that I am not out enough or if I am too out.  It is such a hard thing to think about one’s sexuality as public consumption, whereas with straight couples it is just the way it is and is not necessarily sexualized.  So the thought of getting married at first just seemed like an unnecessary thing, as if I was trying to conform to something the world says people should be or do. Then, I got off my anti- heteronormative thing, reminded myself I was not in college anymore, and I needn’t have to dissect everything. I should be free to live and realize my life as best suites me. And while there are many people who question the point of two men getting married, either disapproval based on prejudice or disapproval based on conformity, for Dave and me it is purely about wanting to be the center of attention! Also to, (insert Sarah Palin affect) we want to share our joy and love with the people most important to us, while being the center of attention!

So after tepid efforts to set a date, we finally decided that it would happen in September or October of 2011 and in early summer of 2010 we began looking for a venue.

So, here I am, blogging for So You’re EnGAYged, and am very excited about it.  You are catching us in the middle of our wedding planning, so over the next couple posts I am going to talk about various vendor searches, and other things about the wedding planning process.

I moved to Boston.  I was a year out of college and trying to decide where my life was going.  So I moved, from Texas to Massachusetts.   I had no job, no apartment, and didn’t know anyone.   I had an apartment in a week, a job in six, and ten weeks after I moved to Boston, Jen and I had our first date.  We had both been cast in a play at the end of August (I’m a big theatre geek, have I mentioned that yet?).  After six weeks of rehearsal I finally got up the nerve to ask her out and on October 10^th we went on or first date.  One year and six months later Jen proposed, we exchanged rings and now we’re getting married!!

Jen and I visiting New York*

I’ll tell you the proposal story someday, but for now let me tell you about us.  I grew up outside of Los Angeles, Jen grew up outside of New York City.  My parents are very conservative, Jen’s are very liberal.  I went to college in Texas, Jen went to college in Pennsylvania.  I’m an administrative assistant, and Jen is on staff at a collegiate library.

Our wedding is planned for Memorial day weekend.  We are 91 days out from our wedding.  All the major stuff is done (you know, location, caterer, attire).  However, there are still so many things that have to be done over the next three months (florist, rings, center pieces, etc.).  I cannot wait to marry this amazing woman!And I am looking forward to sharing this journey with you.

*All photos by me

Nat + Sarah

My future wife and I first met in 2007 at a housewarming party for my girlfriend at the time. It was love at first sight for Nat, but since I was dating someone, we went the friend route. We had a wonderful relationship as friends—we rode bikes around San Francisco, got tattoos, ate pizza in the Castro, and spent long hours in coffee shops working as I was in grad school and she was picking up extra work as an editor. After six months, Nat told me that she was beginning to have feelings about me, so we had to part ways. It was really hard, but we stopped talking completely. Two years later I found myself single and thinking about Nat. We met up with each other in December 2009 at a craft fair and the magic was still there. We fell in love super hard and got engaged eight months later. After three years of knowing one another, we’re finally beginning our lives together. Our wedding is going to be in San Francisco in the spring of 2011.

Nat and I were just friends in this photo - she played guitar at my birthday party during the sing-a-long!

I’m a photographer specializing in LGBT events and I was super excited to begin our wedding planning, as I knew everything that would be involved. We’re going to accomplish this super fun wedding plan as a team. We worked really hard to divide up the to-do list, so neither of us feel overwhelmed. What we are going to do will cater to our strengths. For example, Nat is a musician, so she’ll be handling the music. She also has super neat penmanship, so she’ll be handling our invitations. I’m a crafty femme, so I’ll be doing the decorations, planning the ceremony, setting up the day of plans, making a back drop for the altar, handling the photo booth props, etc, etc, etc. Luckily, we have super talented friends that will help us out with flowers, food, jewelry for me and the bridesmaids, bridal bouquet, boutonnières, MC, and we’re going to have a dear friend of our marry us!

Being friends first has made our relationship so much stronger.

Thanks for following me on this journey! There will be laughter and tears, and in the end, we will have the wedding of our dreams with a budget we can afford.

All photos by me

I am originally from New England- I was born in Connecticut, went to college in northern Maine and did my graduate studies in Boston. Recently, my partner Christina and I moved to the west coast so that I can pursue my PhD in Mass Communication & Society at the University of Oregon.We purchased our first home this summer in Eugene, Oregon which we share with our two cats, Oliver and Phoebe, and our dog Charley.

Me and Christina (photo from our engagement session with Maureen Ford Photography)

A little about me (and Christina, of course!)

I am the extrovert and Christina is the introvert. I make messes, she cleans them up. I drink micro brew beer and she drinks Pinot Noir. I walk the dog and she cleans the litter box. I am a morning person and she likes to sleep in. I’m a sucker for sweets, she likes the savory. I am the butch, she is the femme.

Me and Christina (photo from our engagement session with Maureen Ford Photography)

Christina and I met during the summer of my senior year of college (2007) in Ogunquit, Maine, which is where we will be getting married.  Because we are planning our wedding  3,000+ miles away, we wanted to get a jump start on things before we moved.  Our engagement story was featured on So You’re Engayged this summer, so I’ll spare you the details.

In terms of wedding planning, we are way ahead of schedule, so here is a brief snapshot of where we stand:

Wedding Date: Our wedding date is 9/10/11 (a very fun and easy to remember date, which is fantastic for someone with a goldfish memory like mine)

Wedding Venue: We will be getting married at Hope Hobbs Gazebo in Wells, Maine, which is in a harbor on the southern coast of Maine

Image from Town of Wells

Wedding Reception- the reception will be held at Jonathan’s Restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine (which is a delicious restaurant that also has great live bands- we saw Melissa Ferrick there in 2008). We are still working on putting the menu together but have a general sense of what we will be serving (we are thinking a chicken dish, beef dish and a fish).

Guest List: We have settled our guest list, which is just over 120 people. Christina has a large extended family (even though she is an only child). I, on the other hand, am an only child with a very small immeadiate family and my only relatives live in Poland- so many of my guests are friends from college and co-workers.

Photographer: Through some Google searching and internet mining we found our photographer Justine Johnson (who is a featured vendor of SYE)- she is from Saco, Maine (which is where Christina’s parents live). This fits fantastically with our goal to support local businesses with our wedding.

Cake: We have decided to go with Coastal Cakes (also located in Saco, Maine)- I have been in touch with the owner via email and telephone- she took a chance on us and actually overnighted us 2 cupcakes because we could not make a cake tasting appointment- we are still in the preliminary phases of flavors but are leaning toward red velvet cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting. We will do cupcakes for all of our guests and then have a 2-tiered cake for us to cut and then to freeze and eat on our 1 year anniversary.

Band: To me one of the most important parts of a wedding is the music, so finding the “right” band was key- so I searched long and hard for a band that we could afford but that was also fun, and actually good- we decided to go with The Coronados- a 6 piece (guitar, bass, drums, piano, saxophone and vocals) band from Saco, Maine.

Theme/Colors: After teeter-tottering about colors we decided to go with cocoa and ivory with accents of green. Both Christina and I will be wearing off-white and our bridesmaids will all be wearing match cocoa colored dressed. The overall feel we are going for is a chic, rustic using the three colors to evoke this. I absolutely love white birch and oak (and all sorts of woodsy things) and would love to incorporate actual wood where ever we can.

So…we have quite a few of the big ticket items taken care of, but these are the easy things…the details will be brutal I’m sure.

I’m one of the new bloggers and I’m happy that I get to talk about everything surrounding wedding with you all from beginning to end. I’m currently coming to you from the other side of the engayged spectrum; in other words, I’m not quite yet engayged! I know, I know, what exactly am I doing here, did I put the cart way before the horse here, etc., etc.

Okay, well being that I’m honest, that is all true – right now, this second I am not engayged but I’m here to write to you about my experience being that I’m about to propose to my partner and I have to be honest, I am excited but I’m also quite nervous.

See, there is a 5-year age difference between my girlfriend and I but that is not the only thing, at the time I plan to propose we will only have been together for 9 months! Yes, you read correctly, it will be only 9 months this December. Surprisingly enough, I’m not worried about it. I know I love her and I know she loves me. In fact, she actually talks about marriage more than I do, which is definitely something I’m not accustomed to. You see, I have never thought of myself as the type to get married; heck, I have never, ever once thought about proposing or planning a wedding – I just wasn’t that type of girl.

Yet now here I am, overwhelmingly smitten and planning to propose to my girlfriend. I have received mixed reactions, even though most have been really positive, which is understandable but as much as I hate to admit when you know, you know (I can’t believe I just said that!). We have met each other’s families, we have been through a death in her family and we have traveled together on numerous occasions (we even flew to Phoenix to see Lady Gaga with her best friend and her girlfriend – did I mention she bought my concert ticket, Gaga was awesome by the way). So, I really think we are pretty immersed in each other’s worlds and it has been smooth sailing for the most part. Which is amazing being that we both come from Southern black families that is saying a lot.

Also, we will probably have an engagement on the longer side, so we can make sure everything is together. I have it planned out, minus buying the ring, which will happen the first week of December but I have to tell you, it is so hard to keep this secret! I can’t tell you how many times, I just want to blurt out, “YOU. ME. MARRY. SOON? PLEASE?” but I have restrained myself because I honestly can’t wait to see her face.

So yes, I’m not engayged but I’m soon-to-be engayged and I can’t wait!

Just engayged!

On June 16th, 2009, I introduced myself to you for the first time: a new blogger, recently engaged, and brimming with wacky ideas for our (two) weddings. Since then, you may have heard about what happened when our first wedding venue got sold, how we picked our diamond free wedding rings, seen the gorgeousness of Hawes & Curtis button-ups for women, giggled over our REAL UK Civil Partnership withme, and had the chance to meet my wife.

Bundled up for Christmas -- 4 months to the UK wedding!

You’ve been alongside me while we prepared to get married in England on April 17th, 2010, and I’m back again to plan our second wedding on October 16th, 2010–this time in California, USA!

Another wedding, you say? Like you did the legal bit and now you’re throwing another party? Sort of. You see, Alex and I weren’t content just to get legally hitched with a little ‘do’ over here in England with most of my family and our college high school/college friends not being able to witness the ‘real’ deal, so we’re doing it all over again in Northern California this fall. And by doing it all over again, we mean throwing a second, full-blown pre-reception/committment ceremony/cocktail hour/BBQ/dancing kind of wedding American-style.

Engagement Photo in Northern California by Wyatt Olson Photography

If it wasn’t overtly difficult planning a wedding between London and Cornwall, planning a wedding internationally requires some serious creativity and teamwork. For instance, my red wedding dress by Jenny Yoo ‘Jocelyn’ ships to my mom’s house in August while the supplies kit for 300 white knots was sent to my maid of honor and are now complete in a storage box somewhere in her house; I’ve been corridating with the caterer my mom found in Siskiyou County via email and Alex’s friend is designing our email save-the-date and invitations in Napa; and neither of us will see the wedding venue before the week before the wedding (although I did grow up around there so I kind of have an idea!).

What makes the preparation for the second time all worth it though is that once we’re hitched in California, our union will have been blessed by everyone we love from all over the world. Plus, it’ll be one heck of a party. With a theme like ‘country kitsch,’ you just can’t go wrong! I promise to keep you up-to-date on everything from the redesign of our wedding website to the writing our own ceremony (including renewing of our vows and an Irish hand binding ceremony).

Thanks for reading so far!

]]> http://www.soyoureengayged.com/2010/reintroducing-erica-getting-hitched-all-over-again/feed/ 3 http://www.soyoureengayged.com/2010/introduction-brian/ http://www.soyoureengayged.com/2010/introduction-brian/#comments Mon, 14 Jun 2010 18:45:49 +0000 Brian http://www.soyoureengayged.com/?p=14510 Hi there! My name is Brian and I’m engayged!

I was raised in a very small, southern town called Yadkinville, in the tobacco state of North Carolina. Aching to experience a new way of life, I decided to make a big ole’ leap from “The Town of Progress” to “The Big Apple” at eighteen years of age. During college in 2000, I took a job as a waiter at a NYC theme restaurant called Jekyll and Hyde where I met my future husband-to-be. On Cinco De Mayo in 2001, we decided to start going steady. Eight years later in 2009, we became domestic partners in the state of NY on St. Patrick’s Day. To keep with our holiday theme, Tom proposed to me on Pearl Harbor Day that same year. He said, “If you’re gonna bomb, it might as well be on Pearl Harbor Day, right?!” He’s a funny man, my Tom. That’s one of his most charming qualities. Obviously, I said yes.

We have been planning or wedding since January 2010 and documenting our process on our personal site, www.TheGayWeddingExperience.com. For this event, we have decided to create our own holiday! We will be getting married on October 17th, 2010 – a Sunday (our favorite day of the week). Of course, being the crazy fun couple we are, we didn’t want anything too run-of-the-mill so we decided on a destination wedding in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. We and our lucky guests will be taking a cab to a plane, to a plane to a cab, to a boat to a deserted island with no electricity for a sunset ceremony in the sand, followed by a beach reception lit solely by candlelight, torches, bonfires, and the starlit sky. We can’t wait! I look forward to sharing my journey in this wedding planning process with you.

My partner’s name is Rose and she is my best friend. We met in high school and have been inseparable ever since. I can totally be myself with her and we make every moment fun. We share a love for Lady Gaga, sushi, and anything vintage. She is currently a student, aspiring to go into the dental field. I have this theory that she is actually a panda bear in disguise.

After being together for over 7 years, I proposed to her during a game of Catchphrase. We live in Maryland , but decided to make things legal in DC after the law recently passed allowing same-sex marriages. You can read all about our shot-gun style courthouse wedding here and here.  It was so amazing not only to marry the love of my life but also to take part in such a historical moment for the US . Now we need the rest of the states to get with the program!

After our intimate courthouse ceremony this past March, we are now planning a blow-out bash for October of this year so we can really celebrate with friends and family. And how can I miss an opportunity to wear an awesome dress and dance the night away? Even though I consider our courthouse ceremony to be our actual “wedding day,” the reception we are planning will be much more of a wedding for us. That means we get to bicker over registry items like the rest of them!

Our venue is booked but we are pretty much in the beginning stages for just about everything else. I have a tendency to change my mind. A lot. So far, we have decided on a short vow renewal followed by an evening of snacks, drinks and music. Our party location is at a glass-blowing studio that has a very industrial, artistic feel. I want to have some hints of a traditional wedding, but with lots of personal touches and much more of a party atmosphere. This will be a celebration, after all! We will be planning everything on a limited budget, which means plenty of DIY goodness. Luckily, I have a great support system of family, friends and “practically-family” that will help us along the way. I am so excited to start sharing our wedding adventures with you!