I’d say we were two of maybe ten people wearing masks, which felt bad. When we arrived at the Expo, there was a giant line of people waiting to get inside. Why would we need to go to a giant event with vendors trying to charge us So Much Money for things we already had taken care of? But my pal insisted that we might see some great inspirational stuff there. So when my best friend, who is so invested in planning the wedding that her phone and The Algorithm have decided that she is the bride, got an Instagram ad for the Bridal Expo happening in Portland, I was skeptical. We’ve hired a friend to do the catering, we splurged on the most incredible queer photographer whose work I have admired for years, and we’re going to make the wedding cake ourselves. The function will take place on my friends’ property in the woods, and I’m basically doing all the decorations/tablescapes/set up myself and with the help of friends. I felt very strongly that I did not want to hire a wedding planner, and I am very, very, very lucky that my best friend is an incredibly creative and competent individual who has planned several weddings already and who volunteered to be my unofficial maid of honor/party planner (we’re not having an official wedding party, so there is no maid of honor - but I have affectionately titled this pal the CEO of my wedding, to give context for the scope of how much work she’s doing). I’ll get into that in a bit, but first, let me tell you about my wedding plans: And yet, I found myself waiting in line to attend one just a few weeks ago. But how do you choose them? How do you even know which ones you need? Well, my friends, I guess that’s where a Bridal Expo comes into play! I hadn’t heard of such a thing. If you’re throwing a party (traditional or otherwise) to accompany your wedding, you are actually going to want to hire a lot of vendors. So the thing about weddings is that they can be very simple (like, signing paperwork at the courthouse) or they can be very elaborate, but no matter how you do it, people are going to try to get you to spend So Much Money. Like many experiences on this planet, I barely knew anything about Planning A Wedding until I actually started, you know, planning one. Hopefully, you’ll find the content useful if you are also planning a queer wedding (or perhaps dreaming about one). So I’m choosing to write about planning my queer wedding, just a little bit here and there. And, lez be real: there is a dearth of media surrounding queer weddings. It’s just a thing I’m choosing to do with my fiancée. It should go without saying, but just in case it doesn’t: I do not think that marriage is any more or less special than any other means of making a family. There are lots of ways to have a wedding, to get married, to throw a party, to legally bind yourself to another human. And now, here I am: a bride! Truly no one is more surprised than I am. I like weddings - who doesn’t love a big party celebrating love? - I just never thought I’d have one. Even before I knew I was gay, when I was a supposedly straight tween growing up in suburbia, when my best friends would talk about their “dream weddings” of the future, I just couldn’t relate.
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