Marital Blitz Monday-Weddings All Around!

Before I lose my happy buzz owing to some assholish move on the administration's part, I thought I'd share the details of what's got me up.

I just participated in two weddings in two weekends.  They were miles apart in geography and demography, but both proved what we've been saying around here all along-it's all good.

The first wedding was straight-up:  young Southern hetero educated urban middle class whitish couple going for prosperous married dinkdom.  It was beautiful, people were happy, the couple looked deeply in love, we all danced and made merry.  In other words, it was just the kind of wedding straight men dread going to, but get dragged to by their female counterparts regardless.

Don't get me wrong-I love weddings.  It's the classic woman in me.  I like to see people find each other and declare it to the world.  There's something life-affirming about a wedding, plus cake!  You just can't beat it.  Unless you're asked to be a bridesmaid, wearing what can only be described as a paisley pink and orange handkerchief well beyond the age at which such attire is considered suitable.  But that's a whole other diary.  Anyway, two more people to love and care for each other no matter what, and a roomful of close friends and family to watch them like a hawk to be sure they keep their committment.  It's a wonderful thing.  And spare me any angry posts of "I don't have to have a piece of paper to prove that I love my so-and-so."  Of couse you don't, but this is about the age-old promise of death do us part and you don't have to be a rich white Repub geezer to celebrate it.  Get your own diary and leave me to my happy wedding thoughts!

The second wedding was, well, what this diary is really about.  Those of us who can marry who we wish when we wish take the right so for granted that often we don't marry because the choice is always there if we change our minds.  Easy peasy.  Maybe that's why there's always a subtle element of drudgery to most weddings.  You've seen one, you've seen 'em all.  For thousands of years and billions of couples, it's the same.  Not too many surprises left, are there?

This was not the case for Couple Number Two.  For this wedding we flew from Texas to Massachusetts.  Typically, when I'm going to a wedding I want everyone to know it.  It's good news and I like to share what little of that there is these days.  But for this wedding I could only tell my open-minded friends.  I told no family members or the bride of the first wedding.  She would have taken it as an insult to her special day to know that we were headed for a gay couple's wedding the next weekend.  Isn't that sad?  Such a happy occasion for a couple, yet the source of such tight-lipped bitterness for so many others.

For Couple Number Two, there were no wedding directors or seating charts, no elaborate bouquets or 5-tier cake (damn!), no dress train or veil to worry about catching on things, no spats between dueling mothers or religious idealogies.  There was just pure unadulterated bliss.  I don't know if it was the open bar or the karaoke, but lordy, people were happier at this wedding than at any other I've ever been to.  There was a strong sense of watching history unfold, but more than that there was a sense of defiant joy.  "Don't try to tell US that this union is somehow less worthy of recognition than any other," everyone seemed to be thinking.

There were well over a hundred people at this wedding, some of whom like us, had traveled hundreds of miles to be there.  These were some the nicest people I've ever met, people who understood what was really important in life-that when you find someone who understands who you are and accepts that person without hesitation, you are truly blessed.

Everyone should be so lucky.

•  Damn I love weddings!

  I would remarry Hub just for the party!

  by jandey on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 09:08:43 AM PDT

  •  For me

    it really all comes down to the cake. I've only been to one wedding that I really thought was all that great. And it was very, very nice. It was a perfect reflection of the couple and of each of them as individuals. But there were no cute unattached men, and the cake was just so-so. I guess you can't have it all.

    by mcjoan on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 09:33:52 AM PDT

    •  I tell all first-time brides this:

      the cake will be remembered even if the groom's name is not!  Put the effort into a good cake!

      I'll have to add your cute unattached men addendum as well from now on.

      by jandey on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 09:59:43 AM PDT

    •  The Cake

      My brother had his wedding reception at the home and  my new sister-in-law put the top of her three layer wedding cake in our freezer to save. I was 14 or 15 at the time, didn't know about the tradition of saving wedding cake, and that refrigerator was my natural territory. Needless to say I ate the whole top layer that night before she could retrieve it the next day. Here's a description of the cake...

      Italian Fruit Cake, a delicious favorite consisting of light, airy sponge cake layered with peaches, strawberries, and whipped cream

      It's yummy cake and I love my nieces and nephews from their marriage so I guess everything worked out OK.

      OT - Jesus' General hearts MC Grammar.

      by joejoejoe on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 07:21:57 PM PDT

      •  Naughty boy!

        Btw, did I mispossessify something somewhere?  I don't see the grammar problem JC is referring to.

        by jandey on Tue Jul 19, 2005 at 02:45:48 AM PDT

        •  that was for mcjoan

          Like the thrilla in manilla your gramma is jamma.

          by joejoejoe on Tue Jul 19, 2005 at 03:58:23 AM PDT

•  Too funny

  You do know the diary hijackers:

  And spare me any angry posts of "I don't have to have a piece of paper to prove that I love my so-and-so."  Of couse you don't, but this is about the age-old promise of death do us part and you don't have to be a rich white Repub geezer to celebrate it.  Get your own diary and leave me to my happy wedding thoughts!

   

  That left me with a smile on my face.  I'm glad you enjoyed the weddings.  Me?  I'd rather pick toejam out with my teeth, but I do love cake.  Cake will always lure me in.

  by fabooj on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 09:24:53 AM PDT

  •  Free food in general is a good thing.

    But dancing to the Macarena? Hellish.

    by ablington on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 09:27:21 AM PDT

    •  I hear tell of something called

      "the Chicken Dance."

      Can't say that I've personally witnessed it, but the groom and groom didn't even bring it up last week until well after the reception was over for fear of seeing it performed at their party.  Must be a northern U.S. thing.

      My God, are people still doing the Macarena at weddings?

      by jandey on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 10:03:29 AM PDT

•  I'm going to a wedding

  I'm going to the wedding of two local friends in a few weeks. Whether or not they can get legally married may well depend on whether he's been able to get his birth certificate changed to show "sex=male"; he's transgendered, and the state in which he was born only made changing the sex on the birth certificate legal last year.

  We're looking forward to it; these are nifty, lovely people, and we hope their lives together are happy indeed.

  by Kitsap River on Mon Jul 18, 2005 at 10:53:44 AM PDT