Gettin' Hitched: The big day!

Sistren, I know everyone says this, but our wedding was perfect. We were in a beautiful place that we had basically to ourselves, were with people we love, had weather that cooperated and did not blow away our fascinators, and it was gorgeous and wonderful. After a near six-year relationship marriage doesn't change our day-to-day lives that much, but it made us really happy to get married and affirm our commitment to each other and our relationship. So without further ado, I wanted to share with our two readers some moments from the day.

First, did I mention how gorgeous the setting was? We went to a short mountain trail that's beautiful but doesn't require a long hike to get there, as the Old Marrieds had the OoOM (Offspring of Old Marrieds) in tow. It's a very popular spot, and we managed to get the timing just right. Sunrise was happening as we drove up, so by the time we got to the parking area all the sunrise seekers were hiking down and driving away. We managed to have the ceremony in the window between sunrise viewers and morning hikers. Only a few people walked by during the ceremony, and they all saw what was happening and kept walking by quietly. Thanks random strangers, we appreciate you!

Here we are (me in turquoise, The Librarian in yellow) looking out before the ceremony. Our fascinators didn't blow away despite the wind- I'll be sure to add that to my Etsy review! Something to think about for any other mountain-top wedding preparations. And yes we are both wearing grey Columbia fleeces...don't judge.

Not Pastor Skip did a great job with our ceremony. He started by mentioning the space and the hike as part of the ceremony- in the picture above we have arrived at the boardwalk which led to our rocky outcrop of choice. Notice Indigo Labrys's amazing best-homo cat rainbow backpack! But anyway- the ceremony was short and sweet and included a mention of the non-date sweater and other funny pieces of our relationship.

The ceremony also included the "words of affirmation" from each of the Old Marrieds and our Best Homo. It was really special to hear them in this place, and they were lovely and thoughtful. I think they all put more time into their words than we did with our vows- thank y'all! We loved it. The picture above shows us in our post-ceremony bliss! Notice those amazing wedding T-shirts! I am stoked to be able to wear mine again and tell people I got married in it, just to see their reactions!

After the ceremony we put our fleeces back on and had a wedding toast. It was a little chilly on the mountain! Though I wore shorts so that my rainbow laces and wedding hiking socks would show. I decided not to wear long johns with the shorts, cause then I really would have looked like my father, which is not a wedding look I wanted to go for. Anyway, The Librarian's flask had Caol Ila whiskey and mine had Krupnikas and the wedding entourage had their choice between the two. For this moment we used flasks from a local distillery (that makes the Krupnikas- so good y'all) and used a wedding present REI gift card to get some camping shot glasses. So worth it. The shots helped warm us up and were a great way to celebrate! OoOM had apple juice, though he was really eyeing the whiskey.

Next we hiked up to a higher vista and it got sunnier and even more beautiful as we went. Check out that stunning fall scenery!

We paused many times for photos- like this soft-focus one of The Librarian's ring against this pretty red bark. 

I thought my wedding day was appropriate for jazz hands and posing on rocky parts of the trail. 

After we hiked back down, it was necessary to get a picture of the wedding party in our matching hiking socks. These were the ones that were the closest to our wedding colors and came in sizes big enough for Old Married 1, and we love them!

The wedding festivities ended with an amazing lunch at a brewery near our mountain trail. The perfect end to a perfect day, and we were done by 2! We parted ways from our wedding entourage and drove through the mountains to our honeymoon location. We even stopped for a short hike to a waterfall on the way. 

 Again, we loved our wedding day! If any of you are gettin' hitched, I hope you love yours as much as we loved ours.

Gettin' Hitched: Planning Vows that Don't Make you Gag

Hello sistren. As our wedding day approaches, we've had to plan things like the ceremony and our vows. Or as we've been been calling it, "wedding words." This was the most tedious part for us as every time we looked at example ceremonies online we wanted to barf. Now friends, while I am often cheesy, I don't like sappy and The Librarian can't stand either one. Phrases like "I will treasure you" were not going to work for us. But, with the help of our trusty officiant Not Pastor Skip, we are ready and have planned a ceremony we like! Here's how we did it in case any of you are planning your nuptials and also have an easily-triggered gag reflex:

1. Decide if you want to talk or answer questions. Not Pastor Skip, when we met over drinks to discuss the ceremony, said that he never recommends people memorize their vows unless you're a trained performer. Instead, we could either repeat lines after him, or he could pose questions and we could answer with an "I will." As I'm a crier and want to talk as little as possible, we picked the latter. The less words I have to say, the better!
2. Research. This one is obvious, but we looked at a lot of vows online. Most of them we hated, but we were able to find a few that we didn't find nauseating. The Librarian likes some of the UU Church's ceremonies, and they're pretty lesbo-tastic as they're all about communication. We found another that talks about honoring each other as individuals, which I liked. We made a google doc and put lines that we liked in it to share with Not Pastor Skip.
3. Length. Of the ceremony- get your minds out of the gutter. Because we are getting married on a public hiking trail, and the thought of other hikers pausing to stare is intimidating, we're keeping it short and sweet! 10 minutes tops and we'll be legally wed!
4. Make a list of words that make you gag. Because we are haters of the sap, we made a list of words we don't want in our ceremony. For us this included tender, cherish, treasure, soulmate, and take care of (we are all capable adults here!). Weirdly, I found out in this process that The Librarian hates the word "couple" because it makes her think "coupling" which is dirty. Turns out during this wedding process you just keep learning things about each other! 
5. Make a list of words you like. Since we hated so many words, we decided we better figure out words we do like, or we'd just end up with "Do you? Do you? You're married!" Our list includes: trust, respect, love, attention, adventure, play, and care for. "Care for," to us, is more equitable and less infantilizing than "take care of." As I'm a former English teacher and The Librarian is, you know, a librarian, words are important to us. 
6. Have an officiant who's willing to do the work for you. While we care about our vows, we remain a little skeptical of the whole idea and aren't confident in our abilities to write decent ones. Enter Not Pastor Skip again! When we met with him to plan the ceremony, we entrusted him to take what we'd gathered together and write it for us and he actually agreed! 
7. Put your wedding party to work too. Since there will be four other adults at our wedding, including Not Pastor Skip, we are going to have space for them to say nice things, words of affirmation if you will. This has the potential to go cheesy, but we think it will be nice and just sentimental enough to be awesome. Plus it will give us a chance to grab a tissue- or me at least. 
8. Decide on your ending. We are going to have Not Pastor Skip say "with the power invested in my by the state of XX" just to give a good ol' screw you to our current governor and other members of the legislature who have been less than supportive of LGBTQ rights. It'll give us a chuckle, and we did meet in this state so it's a nice touch. We're not religious, so there will be no God or "J-dude" mentions. Though, Not Pastor Skip has been practicing his back flip for a grand entrance. 
9. Decide what you'll call each other. At least in the ceremony. We pretty much hate all the options: wife is the worst, and life partner is gross, so that leaves us with spouse and partner. But at the end of the ceremony, Not Pastor Skip is going to pronounce us married, and leave out the "wife and wife" part, which works great for us. You may not have our weird hang ups about the word wife, so go on and use what you like! My friend suggested "With this ring I make you my lady," which I think is awesome, but sadly The Librarian is not having it. 
10. Incorporate your pets. What kind of lesbians would we be if we didn't include our animals in the vows? Vowing to take care of our kitties, the dog, and the fish is definitely worthy of inclusion.  

One of the fabulous things about planning a queer wedding is that people have few expectations and you have complete freedom to make it about your relationship. The biggest part of our ceremony will be the gorgeous location. We'll all take a short hike up together, do the ceremony, have a toast from our flasks, and then take another shorter hike farther up to another beautiful vista where we'll take a bunch of pictures and enjoy the space. It's something we love, it's the right amount of symbolism for me, and it's all about us. As it should be! This is one of the few times it really is about you, so live it up!

Gettin' Hitched: A CATchelorette Party

Sistren, The Librarian and I are not raging bachelorette party types. The thought of chasing some jello shots at a strip club, or- let's face it- being out past 11, is not our idea of a good time. Happily, our friends know this, and Indigo Labrys and an Old Married planned us the most amazing CATchelorette party. That's right, a surprise cat-themed bachelorette party. 

The planning of this event was highly involved, so maybe Indigo Labrys can fill you in on it later. They deceived us for months, and got The Librarian's mother in on it too. We were on our way to pick up Indigo Labrys, who asked us to come upstairs (so she could find her cat- a very natural and theme-party appropriate excuse!) and then we were completely surprised by our queer lady friends all waiting in matching cat shirts and cat ears. There were a few straights there too, cause we're diverse like that. We really love our straight friends, they're just like everyone else. It's important to be open minded, sistren, even if you worry their straight marriages will tarnish the sanctity of your queer marriage. 

Anyway, we wanted to share a few ideas if you want to have your own CATchelorette party or similar, for yourself or someone else! Follow these tips and the party is sure to be a meow-ing, purrfect success!

1. Be good at lying. When your friends tell you that their mom wants to meet you, and they ask you what night you can go to dinner, make sure you insist on going the same night as the party. That way there's an easy way to get them to your house! Then during that day lie and say you're having car trouble and do they mind coming to get you? Bonus if you get the mom to tell them she's made reservations at this restaurant near your house for a bit after you want the party to start, so the Nearly Marrieds will get there at the appropriate time.

   

   Party planners feeling smug.

2. Don't worry about boring hetero traditions, like separate parties. Separate bachelorette parties are totally unnecessary for queer ladies if they're not what you want. Obviously, since you are queer ladies you are merged, and so cannot bear to be apart from your betrothed. You're getting married so you can be legally merged, and this starts now. 
3. Create a queer-lady theme. CATchelorette was pretty genius, so feel free to steal it. Or maybe you and your lady (or your friends if you're the planner) are more into softball, so a CATCHelorette would be more appropriate. Or you could not worry about appropriateness, and host a saucier SNATCHelorette. Either way, it should be something fun for the Nearly Marrieds. 
4. Get crafty. Old Married and Indigo Labrys spent a lot of time making our amazing cat-ear triple-tiara veils. They also customized our party cat shirts to say "Bride" (a word we are not fans of, but who doesn't love anything if it's on a cat shirt?). They even wrote "Bride" in our respective wedding colors, which shows a skillful attention to detail. We were quite impressed.
   
5. Have themed food and decorations. At this party, it included cat stickers on all the food labels, chocolate peanut butter cats (naturally, made from candy molds from our wedding registry), cup-cats, and a very impressive cat-themed bar menu. They gave it that personal touch by naming two of the cocktails after our own beautiful fur children. Cute, in theme, and personalized for the Nearly Marrieds- a party planning feat.
   
   

   

   Tie-dye and cats, because what else?

6. Push the drinks. Who doesn't have fun when your friends are giving you really strong drinks? Though we had a painful hangover the next day that sadly comes from not being in our early 20s, it was worth it. Especially since we had a designated driver in the form of The Librarian's mom. Speaking of which, that brings us to number 7-

   

   The Librarian enjoyed her Gin Meow-er

7. Have a house mom. We were seriously struggling the next morning. If you can arrange for a mom or chosen family to be in attendance at the Nearly Married's house the next morning to make them hangover food, they will greatly appreciate it. 

   

   I needed this.

8. Let the party affirm your wedding decisions. While The Librarian and I were super happy with our party, having so many expectant faces all on us when we entered the room was overwhelming. Luckily this was only a few seconds, but at a traditional wedding it would be for much longer! This solidified our feelings that we have planned the perfect tiny ceremony that is all about us and not about other's expectations. See also number 2. Do what you want, and who cares what people think.

Pin-the-tail on the Cat!

Thanks Indigo Labrys (AKA the Best Homo) and Old Married, we had a purrfect, meowsome time. 

Gettin' Hitched: A wedding colors photo shoot

Greeting Sistren, the mini-series on my and The Librarian's wedding continues. I think I harmed our good karma with the last post about how easy the planning was because the ring The Librarian originally picked out is no longer being made, so we picked another yesterday. But she likes it even better than the original and it's going to look great, so yay!

Today's topic: wedding colors. Weddings colors you say? Why yes, this is one of those things you're supposed to have. And because we love nothing more than conforming, we have them! Lemon and turquoise. The picture below should tell you why.

That's right, at The Librarian's insistence (I swear!), we have wedding colors, picked from the lining of our hiking boots. Naturally, we both have Keens. The Librarian also made me do this photo shoot twice, as the first time she said you couldn't tell that hers were yellow. For someone who had to be nagged into getting married, she sure is opinionated and particular all of a sudden. Did I mention that it was not I, but The Librarian, who wanted this blog to temporarily become about our wedding? Like I mentioned last time, nagging works!!!

Here's some shots from the original shoot, featuring our cute dog!

Contemplating the sanctity of marriage.

Remains dubious.

Like good lesbians, we also had to have our kitties involved. Should we use this photo to send out a formal announcement?

Kitties!

Other lady-lovin' ladies out there, what are your wedding colors? For how many of you is the answer 'rainbow'?What is the color of the lining your hiking boots? Stay tuned in the weeks/months ahead for more sporadic wedding posts. 

Gettin' Hitched: How to Plan a Wedding in 2 Weeks

Hi all, we're taking a break from our regularly scheduled snark to gush a small amount: The Librarian and I are getting married! Yay for entering a patriarchal, heteronormative institution! We decided awhile ago (well, I did at least) that we wanted to get married when it was federal so now's the time! Thanks SCOTUS!

While we have had lots of fun attending weddings of family and friends, the thought of planning our own is way too stressful. Instead, we're having a very, very small and low-key ceremony. I'll be posting a few things about our nuptials to help out either of our 2 readers who may be planning for their own civil muffin ceremony. So without further ado, I give you my tips to plan a wedding in two weeks. Though our actual wedding isn't happening for awhile, our planning is essentially done! Hooray!

1. Harass your girlfriend until she consents to marry you. With The Librarian, this was a work in progress! As with all things she freaks out about, I just kept bringing it up until eventually she agreed with me. One night a few months ago, I said something like "let's look at wedding rings" and instead of responding with her usual "Ughhh! No!" she said "OK." Shocked, I checked that she had not suffered from a stroke, and made sure she was actually consenting to marriage. She replied "You knew you'd get your way eventually" and proceeded to look at rings with me. Win! I am definitely the Mark to her Allen in our relationship. So keep nagging ladies and you'll eventually get your way!
2. Have siblings who have paved the way to not having a wedding. My sister and bro-in-law got married at a quicky place in the city where they lived, and didn't tell anyone for NINE MONTHS. That's right. They moved right after they tied the knot and everyone in their new town knew them as a married couple, but none of their friends and family were any wiser. So since we are at least telling people before the event, we're doing great!
3. Have siblings who've had big-ish weddings. On The Librarian's side, her siblings both had traditional weddings with the dress, reception, the whole she-bang. Since that has been covered by my out-of-laws we feel no familial obligation to do it ourselves. Thanks guys!
4. Live in a place with a discriminatory legal system that allows you to plan the event before you can actually do it. Because I've been scheming to marry The Librarian for a few years now so I had basically decided what I wanted to do a long time ago (as previously discussed, she always comes to my side). We have the fascinator picked out, the spot, the people, and that's all we care about so it was easy! We just had to put the plan in action once we had the green light. While if you live in the U.S. you don't have this advantage anymore, start planning early in line with Tip #1 above. 
5. Make a list of all your family and realize it's a ridiculous amount of people. Then throw away the list. We decided having a lot of people was not worth the stress and expense, especially as we had 60+ with family alone. Yikes! We love y'all, but no.
6. Pick a spot that's hard to get to. In line with throwing out your list, pick a spot they couldn't all fit anyway. I don't want to get married at the courthouse because people get sentenced to jail and pay parking tickets there, so it seems like bad juju. Instead, we've picked a pretty spot in the mountains. It's a short hike, but a hike nonetheless, and there's definitely not enough space for 60+ people on the mountain, let alone in the tiny parking lot. We decided it's more important to us to be in a spot we love and have the ceremony be about us and our relationship, rather than including everyone we care about. 
7. Be old. Not being in our 20s, we are more removed from our parents and immediate families and so don't feel like we have to please anyone with our personal decisions. This is great for doing what you want and not being pressured into having a big celebration, a dress you hate, accommodating everyone, etc. Not that our families would be high maintenance, but the more people you include the more opinions there are. And we're both super stubborn and don't like being told what to do. Many people we know who did get married in their 20s and had bigger weddings have expressed jealousy at our low-key plans so we feel pretty smug about it. 
8. Have a friend who's conveniently a pastor IRL.  Even though I'm a heathen, we're being married by a pastor. Not Pastor Skip, as I'll call him. He's in my cohort at PhD school and has a desk in the same shared office space as me. So as soon as I had obtained consent from The Librarian, I asked Not Pastor Skip how he felt about mountains and heights, and we had our officiant. 
9. Get a tiny wedding entourage. Going with our low-key plan of not having anyone fly out for our wedding, we're not going to have our folks or siblings there. We'd love to have them there, but see numbers 6 and 7 for not inviting them. Plus, our families live far away so when they come we want to visit and hang out, which is not something we want to do after we get hitched. So instead, we're just having Not Pastor Skip; Indigo Labrys as our Best Homo/Queer; and our friends/family Old Married 1 and Old Married 2 as our witnesses. Offspring of Old Marrieds will be our ring bearer in spirit though he's not allowed anywhere near our actual rings (sorry OoOMs, you don't have enough motor skills yet). 
10. Only do the traditions that matter to you and your woman. Since we're not going traditional, we are just picking the things we like and skipping everything else. It makes the planning a lot easier. We're having rings (already ordered!), a tiered cake (at a simple party several months later), and that's pretty much it. Easier than playing 'spot the lesbian' at a Tegan and Sara concert. 

So that's it folks! I'll post more later about our actual plans as we ready ourselves to enter the world of conservative legalized relationships!

Lesbian Aunting!

Dear readers, my sister sent me a picture of my nephew in one of my custom onesies, which reminded me I wanted to share them with you! Let it be an inspiration to those of you who wish to clothe your tiny relatives in awesomeness. (Tater Tot was my nephew's in-utero nickname). If you have other ideas for shirts my nephew should wear, please share them in the comments!

Engagement and Wedding Photos for us Lady-Loving Ladies!

Hi friends! It's been an embarrassingly long time since since we have posted- we blame dissertating for everything. 

As the SCOTUS will (hopefully) soon decide that everyone can enter the problematic, patriarchal institution of marriage regardless of their sexual orientation, we anticipate seeing an increase in lesbian weddings in our social circles. A time to rejoice! A time to make drunken toasts, eat bland catered food, and dance to classic hits such as "YMCA" and "We are Family." 

What could be better than a wedding? Fancy engagement and wedding photos, of course! I recently read this hilarious article about how annoying engagement photos are, and another friend sent me this absurd list of "don't miss" shots for your wedding. They're filled with ideas like shots of your clasped hands, pictures of the bride crying and/or hugging family members, and gendered portraits of the wedding party getting ready on the big day. I feel like we can do better, don't you? 

So without further ado, here are some suggestions for your engagement and wedding photos that truly represent our lady loving communities. As one of my PhD buddies' suggested, I will use Bride A and Bride 1 to "prevent hierarchy," cause we're all about equality here.

Engagement Shots

1. To playfully acknowledge that your marriage won't signal lesbian bed death, pose in a cemetery lying artfully on a mattress. Close your eyes and touch each others' faces for extra flair. 
2. Gingerly hold "Future Mrs. and Mrs." signs and far away from your bodies. Bonus points if you're gagging. 
3. A close-up of your cat-hair covered legs, seated side-by-side on the couch. 
4. Your fur-children wearing rainbow collars and holding a little sign with your wedding date!
5. Your wedding rings artfully placed on a pair of scissors. 

Wedding Shots

1. Bride 1 aggressively dancing at Bride A, while A cowers in embarrassment.
2. Bride A and Bride 1 getting dressed by themselves, cause we are all independent, self-sufficient adults. 
3. The wedding party drinking cocktails before the ceremony, instead of applying makeup or fixing their hair. Who wants to do those things when you can enjoy adult beverages?
4. Slightly uncomfortable straight wedding guests (preferably distant relatives who aren't sure what they think of the gays) with fake smiles plastered on their faces. 
5. Bride 1 making crazy eyes at Bride A during their vows- Bride A looking exasperated. 
6. The brides' fur-children wearing tuxes, fascinators, vests, etc. It's important to involve your whole family in the big day!
7. Standing in front of your closet filled with flannel shirts and sensible shoes. 
8. A sign of your getaway Suburu with "Just Merged" written on the back window. 

 

What other photo ideas do you have for the big day?