How hard May 2, 2008

I was just thinking about our engaged friends, K & M. How one day they might have a wedding ceremony like us.

Or almost like us. K & M are guys. I never really thought about how much easier it must have been, comparitively, to plan a wedding around two lesbians. How hard would it be for a couple of guys? They would just have to fight against even more stereotypes and gender roles.

It was kind of fun for Jade to wear her suit and me to wear a dress. I don’t see K or M considering anything like that. How much harder is it for two grooms? Would they want flowers? Could they find another gay-friendly florist? Of course, they live in Orange County, so that’s probably one of the best places to try to find a gay-friendly wedding vendor, outside of San Francisco, perhaps.

And K & M will be in the same boat as we were. Parents in denial. Parents pretending they don’t know. They’ll have to make it up in friends, which they have a lot of. More than we do. Would it be a big wedding? A small wedding?

I asked K & M when they were going to get married, and I kind of got that look like they’d wished I hadn’t asked. So I didn’t get an answer, either. It’s probably just the equivalent of your Aunt Harriet asking you when you plan on getting married to some nice young man, when you don’t even have a boyfriend. And aren’t even straight.

You may say I’m a dreamer March 21, 2008

We have cool-ass friends.

Most of the merry 20 or so at expected to attend our wedding also are in our wedding.

We have a photojournalist friend shooting it. A friend’s mother (an EXCELLENT baker) hooking us up with wedding cheesecakes. Not to mention our two attendants and a friend handing out programs.

And a friend of ours — my private lessons teacher — and her husband are playing for us.

My musician friend is hella crazy busy. All the time. I finally caught up with her via phone this week. And even though I’ve had months to think about the music, and even though — even worse! — I’m a musician myself, I had really no clue what kind of music we wanted.

I knew, however, what we didn’t want. Pachelbel. Wedding March. Ave Maria. On my part, I wanted to rule out just about anything I’ve played over and over again in the various wedding gigs I’ve done over the last 15 years. Lizzie just didn’t want to be too conventional, since a lot of the rest of it isn’t very conventional.

So my musician friend helps me out, fishes out ideas. We’ll have two attendants — Lizzie’s brother and a mutual friend — who mainly have the job of carrying stuff. They’ll come down the aisle together… to… Pachelbel. (dammit. But it is pretty and it’ll be such a short snippet it’ll be OK.)

When it came to us, I drew a blank. My musician friend says they have some popular music. Elton John, Josh Groban (Elton’s OK. Josh Groban–absolutely not. I barely know who he is.) But at that moment my mind hitched onto a familiar melody both Lizzie and I love. I asked her, “Do you know any John Lennon?”

We’re walking down the aisle to “Imagine.” I hope they can find a good arrangement.

That one detail actually has me smiling about this thing. I’ve told two friends about the addition of “Imagine,” and they say they might actually cry. Lizzie said she might cry. Hell, I might even cry.

The addition of the music makes all of this seem much more real. Concrete. We’re gonna do this thing. Yes, it is a big deal. In front of all those people, for the first time we’ll be holding hands. And sharing a kiss.

When we first moved here, we were almost a secret to ourselves.

What a crazy, crazy turnaround.

Thank God for our awesome friends, those who support us and love us and who’ll be there for our one special day.

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

We are family February 19, 2008

 Another entry for the abnormal smorgasboard.

No. 2.
It’s a joyous occasion to be shared with all your family

Lizzie and I are, as she’s mentioned, out to at least most of our immediate families. And they’re not too happy about it. Her family knows about the ceremony, and she has a member coming. Everyone else… they don’t want to talk about it.

Me… Most of my family doesn’t even know about the ceremony. Well, I don’t think they do. Who knows. All the gay wedding books (yes, I’m sick and I research everything) say “invite your family, even if the thought of you makes them sick to their stomachs! You’ll regret it if you don’t at least tell them and you patch things up, yada yada yada.”

I mention this to one of my friends, and she told me, “Jade, honestly I don’t think your Mom is going to say to you in 10 years, ‘You didn’t invite me to your commitment ceremony!’”

I’m a chicken. I came out to my Mom last year. Then all sorts of unrelated other shit hit the fan. It was one of the worst times of my life. And I’ve had plenty of sucky things happen to me, believe me.

Since then, I’ve been in full survival mode. I figured she can’t be nasty to me if she doesn’t have ammo (read: any information about my life). So I don’t give her ammo.

She’s gotten nicer, I’ve loosened up, but things aren’t the same. She’s still disgusted. I’m still guarded. I try to remain thousands of miles away with my multiple tentacles or whatever it is that makes lezzies slimy to the touch.

All this to say… I am under no obligation to invite anyone I don’t want there. Nobody. This is one day to get something most straight couples take for granted: Some positive public acknowledgment of our union.

So yeah. The uncle who hit on you once you hit puberty? The cousin who’s always mooching? The great aunt who could never remember your name?

All of you: Just stay at home.

Smorgasboard February 18, 2008

Though we may bitch or make fun of ourselves for being caught off guard when we shouldn’t be by questions that don’t faze the “normal” person, I think that’s the absolute best thing about this whole experience.

That it’s “not normal.”

Exhale with me. Say it again. Doesn’t that feel great? Like… like taking 100 of your closest friends and having them flip a big, fat collective bird at polite society.

Fuck polite society. They’re not paying for this thing.

OK, I guess I should clarify before I get too sanctimonious. Or rather, I should acknowledge that I realize that by the very virtue of deciding to hold a ceremony, we are falling in lockstep with societal norms.

But the devil’s in the details. And for us, it’s been fun actually dissecting, picking, choosing. It’s like a big old smorgasboard out there, and there’s not much that we feel we absolutely, positively have to put on our plates.

Well, fun, sort of. Though I’ve been employed at various weddings before, I guess I had no idea the amount of moving parts associated with one. That’s why I can’t completely pooh-pooh tradition. Tradition sometimes is a handy crib sheet when the choices become too baffling.

But anyhow, different. Weird. Crazy lezzies, too practical for their own good, somewhat winging it. Let me count the ways. I’ll start with…

No. 1

Spend hundreds on a dress… Fuck it. This suit is nice.