Our Beautiful "Unofficial" Wedding Day

Kristen and Me

   My wife Kristen and I got married twice. Once was to have a ceremony we could share with loved ones to promise ourselves to each other. The second was to travel 6 and a half hours away, to a city we did not know how to navigate well, just to get a piece of paper that has our names on it and that says we are married.  Our first "unofficial" wedding was in the beautiful state I have lived in all but 6 months of my life, and where Kristen and I first met. She went to high school two cities away from where I attended high school. We met at a Christian Camp we both worked at when we were 18 years old. We kept in touch for 8 years while Kristen went to college and played soccer three states away, then moved up north. We started dating 8 years after we met. I had a huge crush on her after the first time I saw her run her strong hands through her gorgeous, thick, chin length blond hair. At this time in my life, I was firmly rooted in Christian Fundamentalism, and believed my attraction to the same sex was sinful. Although I tried not to be, I was attracted to her athletic body, and strut, as well as her intense love for God and others. She was, and still is, the most patient, caring, unbiasedly loving woman I know. She loves helping people any way she can. One of my favorite stories her Mom has told me is that when she was in elementary school, she would come home and say, "Mom, I need more pencils." When this happened almost every day, her mother asked, "Honey, what's happening to all of your pencils?" To which she responded, "The other kids in my class needed them, so I let them have mine!" like it was the most normal idea in the world. That is certainly my wife today. If someone needs something, and she has it, she will give it without a second thought. If she sees someone who is homeless, she will chat with them a bit, and then give them granola bars that she keeps in her car if they are hungry. She lives without the socially constructed filter of segmenting society into favorable and less favorable. She just sees people who have different stories to tell and adores hearing them all. I am so honored and blessed by her every single day, and I cannot believe she picked me. When she asked me to marry her, I kept saying, "really? really really?" and she responded laughing, " yes of course! I would like a yes or no, you're killing me here!" So I said "Oh of course yes yes yes times a million!" Hugging and kissing and jumping and dancing commenced and we celebrated by going to Texas Roadhouse to start planning our wedding.
   She revealed to me that the reason she somewhat rushed proposing (we had only been dating 7 months) was because she had found out that morning that her sister and her sister's husband, who live clear across the country, were pregnant. It was incredibly important to Kristen to have her sister be able to attend so we either had to wait two months to get married or two years so her sister could fly safely in order to attend. Therefore, we decided that in two months we would be married. The short time was fine by me because patience is certainly not a virtue I usually posses.
   Planning the wedding was both incredibly stressful and interesting. We had many DJs turn us down because  "well no offense but it goes against my beliefs to work at a gay wedding." Kristen thankfully took on the burden of looking for a DJ. She was not hurt as badly from such rejection because she did not live with the fear of knowing she was gay most of her life as I did. She did not even know she was gay until she was 25. The fear that can grow in a person who lives in a Christian Fundamentalist atmosphere is like an infection that can ultimately lead to blood poisoning of the spiritual heart and soul. The fear transforms into the infection of self hate, and the infected grasp onto the lifeless, loveless crutch of rules and their hand made doll of God that is always pointing, always judging, always saying when it is hugged "you are not good enough," and "try harder." I can imagine this fear infection ending in three ways: the horrifyingly too familiar suicide, the unfortunately not noticed enough lifeless zombies who have given up on life and love in order to seek that never ending desire to "fit in," and the one who is freed from the Christian Fundamentalist atmosphere and thinking to embrace a wider view of God and humanity which helps them embrace themselves. It took me 6 years and a traumatic coming out and being silently ostracized by my faith community to be free enough to embrace myself. To Kristen, embracing herself came pretty easily since she didn't have that fear infection. She did manage to find a willing DJ and everything else logistically fell into place. My wife's parents hosted our wedding, and took care of almost everything else themselves from making and decorating the cake, to buying and landscaping their whole yard just for our wedding. They are the best in laws I could have ever hoped for. They both worked so hard to make our wedding absolutely beautiful, and I cannot thank God enough for all of their love and support of us.
   My two best friends agreed to photograph our wedding, and they did a beautiful job of capturing our joy as we weaved our lives ecstatically and irrevocably together. I had asked the Methodist preacher at my home church who loves me and is very open minded, loving, and accepting if she would be willing to officiate our wedding. She said she regretted to say very much that although she would absolutely love to have that honor, the Methodist church may refuse to let her continue preaching if she did. She referred us to another Pastor  who did not have the same issue, and he happily agreed. He gave us some very helpful documents of other holy unions and marriages he had officiated for same sex couples. We were very grateful for these because, let's face it, there are not that many homosexual weddings that are displayed in the media, so we had no clue where to begin planning our ceremony!
 
   Without traditional male/female roles, it was very freeing as well as complicating to create a ceremony that would flow well. I loved the creativity involved in planning the ceremony. I was dreading my own "straight" traditional wedding when I was growing up with the big wedding dress and awkward (for me) formalities. I do admit it took me a while to get used to the idea that we could do pretty much whatever we wanted. I always imagined a wedding had to follow this traditional rigid format of groom waiting at the isle, woman being walked in by her father with bouquet, father handing off bride to groom, words being said and repeated, vows, rings, kiss. I love order and structure, so when my wife and I started thinking about our ceremony, the structure and order were thrown to the wind because we are both women!


Here are some questions you just don't think about until you plan a wedding for two women:

   1: Does someone walk in first? Do we walk in at the same time?
   2: Who's going to give who away?
   3: Dresses; or pants, button down, silk vest and/tie? (I wanted to go with the latter option, but my wife and her family wanted us both to wear a dress. So we did, and if something as insignificant as that can make them happy, then I'm glad to do it.)
   4: Who carries a bouquet? Who throws it at the end?

   My mind was blown away without my comforting structure and order until my wife took my hands, looked straight into my eyes and said, "honey, this is OUR day, we can do anything we want!" Then my creative self soared in the freedom of making this OUR day. We decided that Kristen would walk in first with her Dad, then I would walk in after her. The question was, who would walk me down the aisle?
    My father passed away 7 years before our wedding day. I asked my Uncle who had felt called by God to step in as my father figure if he would be willing to walk me down the aisle. Although we have deep father/daughter connection to this day, he felt that he would be a hypocrite to his personal beliefs if he attended. I asked my Mother if she would be willing to walk me down the aisle. She said she was sorry but she didn't feel like she should. Lastly, I asked my twin sister. She said she wouldn't be able to attend. By this time my heart was shattered by my family's rejection so I just said "fine" to my sister and hung up on her. Then I continued to sit on the steps outside and cried. In my sadness I wrote this poem:

   Who will walk me down the aisle
   Father's gone and sorrows pile
   Love and care seem not enough
   Though I'm a diamond in the rough
   To one who says I'm like a daughter
   But to him it doesn't matter
   Why alone I must be given to
   The one who loves me through and through
   So who will walk me down the aisle
   Father's gone and sorrows pile

I went inside, fell into my lovers arms and said "no one wants to walk me down the aisle," and wept for about half and hour. My wife cried too because of my pain. At this point, no one in my family was coming. I was too scared to ask anyone in my extended family because the rejection of my immediate family was just too much and I felt I couldn't go through that pain again. After a couple of days of mourning my family's rejection, I brainstormed who could walk me down the aisle because I was too afraid to go myself and did not want to go alone. Finally, I called two of my best guy friends who are married to each other and asked if they would be willing, and they agreed. I got the privilege of being walked down the aisle by two of the most handsome men I knew, and my heart was comforted by their support and care for me.

Jon and Zach walk me down the aisle

   Our wedding was absolutely beautiful. My best friend was my maid of honor, and Kristen's sister was hers. They took our bouquets after we were walked in, and held our rings. We had a sand ceremony using green sand for me, blue sand for Kristen, and white sand representing Christ symbolizing how the three of us are inseparable. The cake Kristen's mother made and decorated was absolutely gorgeous. The reception was fun and the whole atmosphere was beautiful, welcoming, celebratory, and not at all awkward or uncomfortable (which was my personal fear). My sister, her husband, and my niece ended up coming, and so many of my best friends from high school attended. One of my friend's mother came who was always a second mom to me and my twin sister. That meant the world to me to have someone who was maternal toward me come to my "gay" wedding. My heart was so full of love and acceptance from my wife's family, and my high school friends. My wedding day was the best day of my life, and I pity that the two people who love me so much couldn't let their love shine brighter than their beliefs so we could all share in my and my wife's happiness and wholeness.

Wedding Cake

Sand Ceremony: Green = Me, Blue = Kristen, White = Christ