Currently Browsing: thoughts on marriage
May 13, 2010
Posted on May 13, 2010 in thoughts on marriage | 6 comments
In response to my post yesterday, the very thoughtful & thought provoking Mrs. Basement pointed out that there is an icky & disturbing pattern in the gay-blogging world where the constant reiteration and celebration of two-dress brides casts dress/suit, suit/suit and well every other bride combo in a negative light.
So are we unintentionally promoting an anti butch/femme vibe by both wearing dresses? Or by being excited/emphatic about it?
I wish I could claim originality on this one, but I’m just writing from our particular position and point of view. I too agree that the wide spectrum of gender identity/expression and style throughout the gay community is one to be celebrated. But the fact remains that we ARE wearing two dresses.
And you can bet that if wearing two dresses didn’t feel authentic/genuine to us this certainly would be a different post. A post about how RAD our fillingenderstyleawesomeappropriateensemblehere.
I think for me what feels icky about asserting a super feminine gender identity and wearing a dress or rather the conflation of the two (because for the record neither of us is exactly high-femme) is the idea that as a lesbian bride you HAVE to wear a dress to make sure people know we’re still a woman. That’s the underlying icky part.
It’s like dresses are pretty and feminine and good. And suits are masculine and weird and wait, “Do you wanna be a man?” Ick.
Both the insistence that there is a distinct butch/femme dichotomy in EVERY lesbian relationship AND the dismissal/negative stereotyping of butch women by the straight (and let’s be honest gay) community sucks.
I think that the tendency of two (more feminine perhaps) women to insist on wearing dresses and emphatically blog about it might stem from the fact that literally the first question most people ask me RE: The Wedding is “Which one of you is wearing a suit?” Over and over and over. It’s like the whole (straight) world only has Ellen’s recent wedding as a reference, and damn it, Ellen wore a suit!
And yet the fact remains that we are both still wearing dresses.
So I wonder how to make sure to celebrate the awesome gender identity/expression of our community and not fall pray to the negative stereotyping that I hate so much, when our choices kind of reinforce certain stereotypes. And bust up others.
It just depends where you’re standing right? And it’s complicated.
Oh! And for the record C is wearing a suit post ceremony. And she’s gonna look hot!!
Mar 14, 2010
Posted on Mar 14, 2010 in real life, thoughts on marriage | 5 comments
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And it has nothing to do with Beyonce & Lady Gaga. I just liked this picture.
Anyhoo…I’m baaaaaack! And after a crazy moving weekend, followed by a week living among boxes and grinding coffee beans with our mortar/pestle because we still can’t find the damn coffee grinder, I’m finally ready to rejoin the blogosphere. Now a whole week without internet means I’ve had A LOT of time to think so you’ll have to bear with me. I promise I’ll even try and be coherent!
So….
I had this friend in high school who was super punk rock. She was in a band and she was an awesome artist and she was basically my idol for a minute there. Anyway, one day in typically divisive high school fashion I made a comment about “some rap song” and she totally surprised me by saying how she really liked that artist. Waaaaa?
If you’re scratching your head and wondering why the hell I’m telling you this little story, I’ll just get right to the point- sometimes I feel like the wedding blogosphere is high school all over again. And we’re divided into groups based on the music we listen to or the stores we shop at. It’s like a blog land battle for my soul.
And wedding zombies don’t eff around. I’ve been rolling this thought around in my head for a while now, trying to get a grasp on exactly how I feel about the competing content out there in blog land. Is there even any competition? Because really it’s ALL pretty. It seems to me there are two camps, diametrically opposed, intent on hopelessly confusing, insulting and belittling EVERY single bride. No one gets left out here folks. And I mean NO ONE. There’s the anti-wedding aesthetic camp where folks “talk about marriage,” pretend they don’t give a flying f*c# about the details, STILL make 200 bajillion napkins AND somehow end up with a blog worthy wedding. And there’s the we wanna talk about weddings in every glorious detail but not really ever touch on what happens post D Day. Details. Details. Details. These peeps end up with blog-worthy weddings too. I oftentimes feel stuck in the middle and am pretty sure that I don’t really fit into either camp.
Now Becca over at A Los Angeles Love wrote a really compelling piece on exactly which photographs makes a blog-worthy wedding (and who/what’s being excluded) that I think is awesome and so true. Go read it. She hits the nail on the head in terms of blog-lands ideals of prettiness, but I don’t quite buy that main stream wedding blogs are the only perpetrator of wedding evils. And to be honest, there is still a lot of inspiration to be found in their too perfect pages. Then again there is a lot of inspiration to be found on all the indie blogs too, and while the beauty ideals may not be the same, I would argue that they absolutely still exist. They’re just different. And the DIY bar is set pretty high across the blogosphere, no matter what the brides final verdict on the importance of said details ends up being. So I actually think all of us blog writers are in part responsible for perpetrating a few wedding evils and worse we buy into the whole us vs. them mentality a little too much in an effort to find our unique voice. I’m a gay girl who is just as comfy in Barney’s New York as I am in my garage (if I had one) fixing my own car. I’m already a precious and unique unicorn, so maybe it wouldn’t kill me to be a little nicer where other peeps weddings are concerned? Maybe I can be a little more comfy in my own skin and my own little corner of the blogosphere and just focus on what works for my wedding with out (too much) “boring” wedding bashing. And still be my bad-ass opinionated self. Maybe. I kinda wanna try, because there is already enough snarkiness in the universe. And I bet you other blog authors/brides-to-be/wedding planner extraordinaires are precious and unique unicorns too. So even if some other brides details seem boring, trite, stereotypical or just plain weird to you, who really cares? See sometimes I feel like a little hesitant to throw a post up over at Weddingbee b/c some people might be offended by my exuberance on my subject matter and sometimes I’m a little hesitant to toss up a silly trifle like my two-post shoe hunt here b/c I think my personal blog readers will find it silly. It’s like my blogroll is forming alliances and could go to battle at any time.
So in an effort to keep the peace, merge the camps, and lighten my snarkiness footprint on the planet, I vow to:
*Blog about the types of weddings I THINK are blog-worthy. I used to do this little thing called wedding wednesdays where I featured gay-girl weddings that I think did a damn good job of this. So if you know of any kick-ass gay-girl weddings please send ‘em my way!
*Have all the glorious unique little details I want AND still be an intelligent thinking bride who cares more about my marriage more than our wedding day.
*Let myself appreciate that other people may have a VERY different idea of what constitutes a beautiful wedding than I do and let it go without feeling the need to make fun of their classic/cookie-cutter details.
*Do a reality check when I come across a “too homemadey” wedding in blog land and instantly compare it to an absolutely perfect photo shoot.
At least those are my thoughts this morning. What are your sunday morning thoughts? Any plans to lessen your snarkiness footprint on planet earth, wedding related or not?
Feb 18, 2010
Posted on Feb 18, 2010 in thoughts on marriage | 2 comments
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Stupid Wordpress. I wanted the title to look like this:
I don’t wanna get married.
Anyway, I know I’m like a broken record with my constant “I never imagined my wedding or my dress or any of this stuff” that I now LOVE writing about nonsense. But there’s a pretty simple reason.
I never really wanted to get married and I never thought I would.
I’m not talking about feeling like a bride, or planning your whole wedding pre-engagement peeps, nope, I’m talking about the actual act of joining your life with another person. Marriage. Didn’t want it. Not a bit. No joke. Seriously.
I know, I know…I’m pausing to allow for your collective sigh of shock.
See I’ve always been fiercely independent and had big dreams of travel and education and writing and art, and well, marriage just didn’t really jive with those things for me. I think this is in large part due to my blue-collar upbringing. All of my friends in elementary school had a dad who worked and a mom who stayed at home or had a part time job. None of these women had careers. And none of them were pursuing the dreams I aspired too.
Now despite this dynamic or perhaps because of it, my parents were always incredibly supportive of their nerdy, artsy little girl and insisted that I go to college and do whatever I want to in this life. I went to a fancy high school and finally met kids who had two working parents, decidedly un-blue collar. Lawyers. Doctors. Writers. VP’s.
And yet it still stuck with me that marriage was not conducive to freedom and success and travel and art and all of my other big dreams.
I pretty much maintained this attitude through my early twenties. I went to an awesome college, I’ve travelled extensively, and I have a job I love.
And somewhere along the line, as I began to achieve my dreams, a funny thing happened: My universe and the possibilities within it expanded to include marriage.
I credit this dramatic transformation to a few very diverse sources: First, I had a pretty traumatic break-up in my mid-twenties followed by the “oh my god, I really am gay” moment. (so yeah- marriage seemed a lot more awesome once you took the boy out of the equation) Second, I took a good look around and realized that a lot of very successful people in my industry weren’t very happy with their personal relationships (or didn’t have any) and I decided I didn’t want to be one of them. And third, I started admiring a few of my close friends abilities to be independent, successful, and hitched all at the same time!
And then I started dating C and it all made sense. She has always been so open about her desire for marriage and children that she made me a lot more comfortable acknowledging that I want those things too! Now I can focus on my career, on making art, on having fun and creating new friendships in a totally relaxed way because I know that C has my back. And I’ve got hers. I’ve found greater freedom, comfort, and possibility in our relationship than in any other I’ve known, and I can’t wait to marry her!
What about you guys? Any other converts from the “I’m never getting married camp” or were you born toting a wedding binder?
