Ramping Up!

Things are getting pretty busy with the wedding--less than 60 days to go! We're going to be having our legal ceremony at SF City Hall in a couple weeks, we finalized our decorations plan with our fabulous friends who are putting all that together for us, I've bought both of my dresses (am wearing one for the ceremony, another shorter, danceable one for the reception), bought our wedding bands, and booked our honeymoon tickets to Belize (I'm so excited about this last one, of course!).

I've also been doing lots of internet research, asking friends and playing around with makeup for the wedding, which has taken more time than I thought it would. I'm doing my own makeup, which I'm actually really feeling excited about. I think it's going to be fun, and it's also just been fun to play 'girlie girl' and fool around with colors, products and even to get my first-ever 'makeover' (it was more like a makeup-over-the-top) at Sephora this past weekend. How I made it growing up in my family of fairly feminine women never having done a makeup counter makeover I'll never know (my mom is a cosmetologist).

But alas, all this activity leaves little time for blogging. But it's good for me to touch base again here in the blogosphere about all the madness of wedding planning. It's important for me to write about this stuff. Keeps me sane. So hopefully I'll be back sooner rather than later.

My Fantasy Career: Alternative Wedding Planner!

I've referred to the gay marriage phenomenon happening currently in California a few times before, and I've realized that this historic moment opens up a whole new sector for the 'bridal' industry (hmm, that name may have to change soon...): gay wedding planning.

I'd already been thinking during the last few months that when I shift over to consulting full-time (sometime in the next couple years after I leave my current job), I'd like to add wedding planning and coordination to the list of services I could provide. I already do fundraising training and consulting, and have done some event planning as both a consultant and a nonprofit staffer. I really like planning events (uh, duh, I started a whole new blog that's basically about my wedding planning!) and I've heard from other folks that I'm pretty good at it. I like dealing with details, figuring out creative solutions to unique problems, and observing and learning about different people's visions and values around special days like weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

Plus, being the progressive, pro-queer feminist that I really think that the whole gay marriage tidal wave is going to change the institution of marriage. Not in the whole 'man and woman' way, but on a more substantial and systemic level. No doubt, many gay people want to get married because of the institutional (and some say, including I, elitist and pro-capitalist) benefits that marriage provides: protection for your assets, the ability to pass on inherited wealth (aka being able to keep the profits you or your family may have earned by exploiting other people in your family with limited taxation), the formal recognition of your relationship as valid, etc. But at the same time, gay relationships--having had to be radical on many levels the way straight relationships don't have to be--are often inherently subversive, and gay people tend to take pride in that. From gender-bending (who's the Mrs. and the Mr. in a marriage between two men, or two women? or between transgendered people? who's the 'top' and who's the 'bottom' are sometimes more relevant terms to queer folks) and screwing with mainstream society's view of what a 'real man' or 'real woman' should be like, to breaking the serial-monogamy rules and having open or 'complicated' relationships, to accepting sexuality in a full-frontal, often healthier way than straight society deems acceptable, the gay community and therefore gay relationships have the potential to rattle the institution of marriage to its very core.

And I think that's a very, very good thing--not to mention it'll be lots of fun to watch unfold! And what better place to be part of all the brouhaha and excitement than by being a same-sex wedding planner? I'd also, of course, want to be eco-conscious and offer a whole menu of green wedding options. I'm totally serious, people, I want to help gay people have fabulous, enviromentally friendly, well-planned and beautifully executed weddings!

So if you're a gay or lesbian or tranny or whatever couple and you need some help with all the myriad details that having a spectacular nuptial ceremony brings, gimme a holler. I'd love to help you make your wedding dreams come true.