Marshall Taylor Union - Same-Sex Ceremonies

gay wedding

SAME-SEX CEREMONIES
INTRODUCTION | THE BASICS | SPECIFICS I | SPECIFICS II

A TRADITIONAL ALTERNATIVE WEDDING | ADAPTING THE GENDER BIAS

A TRADITIONAL ALTERNATIVE WEDDING

When we first began discussing what our wedding would be like we were thinking of a very alternative affair for fear that holding a typical ceremony without legal sanction would look like we were just pretending. This in turn would give the impression that the relationship was also less than genuine. Even worse, it could appear as a mockery of the institution to the married people we respected so much. So we talked about having the ceremony in some informal place like the backyard of our future house and having it led by a friend or even ourselves. However, after we became engaged and started making concrete plans we were quite surprised to find ourselves thinking more and more traditionally.

There were a few reasons for this. First, once we began to realize how much work was involved in planning even the simplest wedding, having no rules went from being an appeal to being a detriment – did we really want to reinvent the myriad of nuptial rituals from scratch? Second, the very meaning of tradition – “an established or customary pattern of action or behavior” – would allow our guests to feel more comfortable at our ceremony. While none of them would have any idea of what to expect from a gay wedding they would be able to develop a framework of expectations once they began to recognize familiar patterns. Hopefully this would provide guests with the added benefit of being able to appreciate the focus of the event instead of concentrating on its context. Third, we liked tradition! We both loved partaking in long held formal customs and what better opportunity would we ever have to do just that? After all, traditions are what make a wedding a wedding! In our concern about making a mockery of straight ceremonies and our awareness that many of their customs don’t apply to our situation, we were about to throw out the baby with the bath water. In fact, as Peter mentions in the Engagement portion of OUR STORY, there is a reason that many wedding traditions have survived for centuries – they have been deliberately and strategically devised to have a very significant impact on the participants. Our challenge would be to keep the best of those traditions and adapt them where necessary to suit our unique circumstances.

Having made this important decision, we were surprised – and a little disappointed - to discover that industry suppliers, books and magazines all seem to advise couples not to worry about tradition. So we turned to the ultimate authority on the topic, the high priestess of protocol: Emily Post. Emily Post’s Wedding Planner and the comprehensive Emily Post’s Etiquette became our bibles. (Emily Post's Wedding Etiquette is a less costly substitute for the latter if you're only interested in wedding advice.) We went by the book (literally) whenever possible and when our situation dictated an alternative, we examined the core of the tradition itself in order devise a substitute that remained true to its spirit.

It’s an ironic footnote that in our love of custom and our deep-seated reverence for the institution of marriage we ended up with a same-sex wedding that was actually more traditional than many straight ones! (For example, the Star Wars themed ceremony our own celebrant once officiated!)

ADAPTING THE GENDER BIAS

The most significant overall factor in adapting a traditional wedding for us as a gay couple was to make it masculine. Any man who has ever been married will surely agree that that weddings are unabashedly bride-centered. Just think about it: bridal shows, bridal magazines, bridal party, and – get this one - bridegroom! Neutralizing this gender bias wasn’t about misguided machismo. It was about clearly establishing that ours was a legitimate union ceremony and not just some amusing imitation of a heterosexual wedding.

We came up with a couple of simple rules to “masculinize” wedding customs and they were a great help throughout the process. One is to be aware that the adjective “bridal” is really just a gender-biased synonym for “wedding” and to use the latter term instead whenever possible: “wedding party”, “wedding shower,” etc. (This rule actually applies just as much to straight couples because of its emphasis on the equality of the partners.) Another linguistic guideline is to replace “bride” or “groom” in the singular (as in “The bride stands to the officiant’s right”) with the participants' actual names (“Mike stands to the officiant’s right”). Using “the grooms” instead of “the bride and groom”, however, works perfectly fine.

The preceding example involving the bride’s position at the altar brings up a bigger dilemma, which is the fact that so many traditional wedding customs are not egalitarian - they are inherently based on the mixed gender of the couple. Personally, we dislike the solution used by some lesbian weddings where the partners each take on a heterosexual role. As we mentioned, a wedding isn’t about playing a game or pretending - especially if you ever intend for your marriage to be taken seriously. That’s why we preferred to assign individual customs to the partners instead of entire roles. Many of these nuptial traditions are quite peripheral and can be ignored outright if desired - the tossing of the bouquet for instance. Others have no real relevance in regards to the person carrying them out. For example, Peter may stand to the officiant’s right while Brandon may say his vows second – who cares that both these customs are traditionally allocated to the bride? Still other customs can be easily assigned in duplicate such as having both partners walk down the aisle instead of just one.

Another approach would be to consider that although neither groom should pretend to be the bride, there is actually tremendous advantage to one groom’s relatives taking on the role of the bride’s family. Should one set of parents happen to pay for the majority of the ceremony, or travel a great distance to attend, for example, the grooms could choose to designate them as the honour family. They would subsequently carry out customs generally assigned to the bride's family such as choosing their wardrobe first, being seated last and making the first toast. This simple distinction would be subtle enough not to afford any family a superior status yet practical enough to save the grooms a lot of arbitrary decisions!

The next few pages, Adapting the Specifics, describes how these fundamental philosophies were used to determine individual ceremony customs.

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Page last updated December 31, 2008