Free-spirited minister willing to marry atheist and stray former Baptist sheep: check.
Ceremony is outside: check
Invitations designed, sent: check. That was a huge weight off our minds. We wanted to design our own, so we spent weeks piddling around, throwing out ideas and eventually tag-teaming instead of going our separate ways. Part of marriage, doing it together.
Plane ticket bought for brother, my only family member willing to come out, and only one halfway comfortable with the idea: check
Downhome guy to do food: check
Cake: check. A coworker’s mom volunteered to make us cheesecakes, for free. Her mom is the best mom, and best baker!
Simple decorations for house: Check. OK, technically, they’re a couple of garlands for the banister, and they were on sale.
Outfits bought: check. I have my dress, and Jade has a suit.
Photographer: check. A friend, who is a professional photojournalist, has agreed to shoot our wedding.
Shoes: Check, uncheck. I have fancy sparkly shoes. Jade is still deciding what to put on her feet. My shoes have heels so I think I might just go to the reception barefoot.
Hair: Hmph. Dunno what’s going to happen with that yet. I’m still deciding whether to cut my hair short — it’s currently in its longest state in years — or keep it long.
Some things need to be ironed out. Do we have an actual checklist like all those wedding advice things say? Not really? Jade keeps a notebook of what we need to do, what we’ve done, how much we’ve spent.
A lot of it doesn’t seem real because we haven’t paid for it all yet.
T-minus a little more than a month.
We met with the minister the other day to discuss exactly what we wanted, and in some ways, we still don’t know. We decided to write our vows, but we don’t know what to say. Even though we are both gifted with words.
The minister keeps saying, oh, not much longer, and in an air of excitement, but the truth is, the big part has already been done.
We did that last summer, quietly. We only told a few people that we signed domestic partnership papers. And some people still don’t know. In some cases, we didn’t think they’d care. In other cases (my family), we figured they didn’t want to know. My aunt and brother talk to me about Jade directly, or rather, I am more likely to bring her up. My father and I still have not talked about our relationship; instead, I usually have an intermediary talk to him about it. Daddy’s little girl doesn’t want to make Daddy uncomfortable, so instead we talk about anything else.
So here we are ramping up to have a big fancy day with all the attention on us. I’m more worried about everything going smoothly, and less about getting through the ceremony.
I’ve been committed to Jade for a while, and this seems like more for other people. At least we are finally being open about our relationship for the first time.
It has been unspoken to some coworkers we are friends with. We felt weird asking them, but they are people we want there, and they accepted our invitations without blinking an eye.
We also want to celebrate. We did the legal thing very quietly, with nothing more than a meal afterward.
Plus, we plan on going on a short cruise the next week as our honeymoon.
All in pursuit of the so-called normal life, but with our own spin.
Leave a Reply