Marshall Taylor Union

gay wedding

REFERRALS

GENERAL BOOKS & WEBSITES

There is an overload of wedding information out there, much of it providing differing guidelines. That’s why it was nice to always come back to Emily Post as a single comprehensive source, particularly when dealing with tradition. We purchased Emily Post's Wedding Planner as a companion to Emily Post's Etiquette which we already owned. However, if you are only interested in protocol pertaining to weddings, Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette is much less comprehensive and therefore much less expensive than Etiquette.

ultimatewedding.com
The best of the professional "wed sites". You can post your wedding date, add your personal wed site to their web ring, visit other personal sites, read tons of informative articles and swap stories and questions with thousands of other users (both brides-to-be and newlyweds). Our only bad experience was that it took repeated attempts to get our wedding listed on their site. Not sure if this was discrimination or just incompetence.

theknot.com
More commercial and less informative than ultimatewedding.com but still worth a look. We also listed our site here.

WeddingBells.com
Wedding Bell magazine’s site – a little light on content at the time of our wedding. US and Canadian sites seem to have identical content but the latter is far better laid out. We listed our site here as well.

SAME-SEX BOOKS & WEBSITES

The Essential Guide to Lesbian & Gay Weddings repeatedly encourages readers not to concern themselves with etiquette yet still contains numerous ideas that can be used in a traditional style wedding. (We actually adapted our vows from one of the samples in the book.) It contains lots of pictures of gay weddings to both inspire you and (unintentionally) remind you just how inappropriate many non-traditional approaches can be!

We found Legal Affairs: Essential Advice for Same-Sex Couples to be an indispensable guide to the realities of committing to another person for the rest of your life.

The Henry-Taylor Affair
If you like our site, you'll also like The Henry-Taylor Affair, a site belonging to a couple of Aussie boys who had their own very traditional style ceremony in 1999. (No relation to Brandon Taylor!)

PlanetOut
Check out their Wedding & Commitment section for lots of info on same-sex ceremonies and long term relationships.

Same Sex Marriage.ca
Want to know more about the state of legal gay marriage in Canada? Be sure to visit this impressive and comprehensive site by one of the couples who have taken their case to the Ontario courts. You'll find out their personal story, the status of their and similar cases in British Columbia and Quebec, essays on gay marriage, information on how to get involved in the fight for equality and much more.

Queer Wedding Webring
Sadly this ring only has 11 sites on it at the time of this writing but if you found our site the least bit helpful then return the favour to other gay couples by joining the ring!

PRINTER

We used Fairy Tales, a mother and daughter company that provided decor, cake and print services for weddings. As mentioned in the Print Materials section, their style of invitation design was definitely too feminine for us but they had no problem letting us design our own print pieces, and gave us good advice on what to include in our invitations.

However, their inexperience with colour printing, consistently late delivery and significant discrepancy between quality of proof and final product were not acceptable and we therefore would not recommend their services to others.

DECOR & FLOWERS

The maternal half of the mother daughter Fairy Tales team was in charge of the flowers and her greater experience was quite evident. Since we didn't do any comparison shopping we can't say whether her prices were average or expensive but we can state without doubt that her quality was outstanding! For those wishing to compare prices and value, please send us an e-mail and we'll let you know our cost for the following: 9 boutonnieres, 3 corsages, 9 wall sconce arrangements, 2 chandelier arrangements, 1 large pulpit arrangement, 1 garland for the front door of the church, 4 pew ribbons (rental), 8 table arrangements, 2 stands, delivery of corsages to our home, delivery, and set-up. See Decor Details for pictures of all the flowers.

OFFICIANT

If you've read the SAME-SEX CEREMONIES section you know how much both we and our guests loved Terri Hope! She was extremely accommodating in adapting her marriage preparation course for a same-sex couple, provided valuable guidance in planning the ceremony and brought a wonderful combination of dignity and warmth to that ceremony. Her rates were also extremely affordable. Check out Terri's website for contact information as well as links to other sites where you can learn more about Humanism.

VENUE

The fact that we were the first same-sex ceremony at Black Creek made our guests' labeling it "a pioneer wedding in a pioneer village" even more true! The staff treated us as they treated all the straight fiancées we ran into during our planning visits to the park, with one waitress in particular seeming to take particular pride in our situation. However, couples not so inclined to being "pioneers" may prefer to hold their wedding after the village closes (4:30) to avoid being in public before the ceremony. We didn't mind the extra bit of attention - in fact we had the chance to expand one young girl's horizons when she asked Peter point-blank "who are you marrying?" - but two women in bridal gowns would likely raise a lot more eyebrows than two men in tuxedos!

From a purely practical point of view, there was only one person handling up to four weddings a day throughout the year so we sometimes found it difficult to get the information we needed in a timely manner and occasionally what was provided did not seem logistically practical. Just plan ahead to give them time to respond to your questions. See the Venue portion of our PLANNING section if you are interested in having your own ceremony there and take advantage of our many hours of research.

CEREMONY & VOWS

Just doing a basic web search will bring up many sites featuring ceremony text or wording but since most tend to concentrate on vows, you may want to specifically check out a couple of our favourites. Rev. Wendy Lyon's site has an outstanding "create your own ceremony" feature that has every variation of traditional wording. Ultimatewedding.com provides numerous examples of various types of vows in their "Vows and Ceremonies" section. For the definitive Christian ceremony, visit the Society of Archbishop Justus website for the marriage service from The Book of Common Prayer.

TRANSPORTATION

We used Rosedale Livery for the transportation of guests by van and the return transportation of grooms by standard stretch limo and their service was very good. The highlight of our day, though, was the transportation to the ceremony in a 1954 Cadillac Fleetwood series 75 stretch from Ambassador Limousines. The owner - and in our case, driver - was an extremely friendly man named Dominic Amato who was more than happy to chauffer a same-sex couple. In fact, he said he had the time of his life driving drag queens in the same car for one of the city's gay pride parades! If you're in the Toronto area call him at 905-820-2074. He charges $700 - $850 depending on whether you want the Caddy, a 1962 Rolls Royce or a 1959 Jaguar/Daimler. Prices are for a five hour rental and include champagne but he is willing to negotiate if you do not want the car all day, as was our case.

WEDDING RINGS

We purchased our wedding bands at Birks' Yorkville store on Bloor Street in Toronto and while we obviously can't speak for other branches, we can say that our experiences at this one were very gay-positive. Birks tends to have knowledgeable and professional staff, excellent selection and reasonable prices.

FORMALWEAR

The men rented their tuxedos from Tuxedo Junction primarily because of a sale they had on at the time. The girls at the Sherway Gardens location took a while to clue in to our unique circumstances but once they did they seemed to really enjoy helping us decide how we were going to distinguish the grooms from one another.

Our sisters purchased their usher dresses from Fairweather's bridesmaid collection because of their good selection, great prices and the fact that the store's cross-Canada locations allowed each girl to be fitted in their hometown. The girls chose the "Amber" style - top $50, skirt $75 - in wine colour (although chrome would have looked amazing too!). They also bought matching taffeta shawls for $35.

AFTER-PARTY

Joe's Elbow Room is a private room complete with its own entrance, washrooms, bar and pool tables located in Joe Badali's Restaurant & Bar. Management was very accommodating and their prices were quite reasonable since they do not charge a venue (they make their money from your bar and food order). Just be prepared to rent your own sound (and light) system if you are planning to have a DJ.

OTHER

If you're considering a restaurant for your proposal to a same-sex partner we highly recommend the outstanding atmosphere and cuisine at Canoe. They went out of their way to accommodate us for our engagement dinner, from discreetly reminding Peter to make sure he took his ring before checking his coat to providing complementary sumptuous appetizers what weren't even on the menu to writing "congratulations" in chocolate syrup on our dessert plates after Peter's proposal!

Wedding insurance is a ridiculously cheap way to ensure that months of planning and thousands of dollars in preparations don't go down the toilet because of something you can't control. For just $150 you can be covered for cancellation expenses due to such things as injury or illness, costs of retaking photographs if negatives are lost or damaged, loss of or damage to bridal attire or wedding presents and cancellation of the honeymoon! There only appears to be one policy available in Canada and it took some time but eventually PAL Insurance Brokers confirmed that their Weddinguard insurance does indeed cover non-legal marriages. PAL does not sell directly to the public but will recommend an insurance company in your area. In Ontario you can purchase it through Youngs Alltrade Insurance Group at (905) 669-9888. (You can also buy it through HUB International but their minimum brokerage fee is two thirds the cost of the basic premium and in my experience they were terrible at servicing their customers.)

As for our wedding planner, she has moved on to interior decorating so there is not much point in reviewing her service!

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Page last updated December 31, 2008