Weddings Redefined

Please join us to celebrate at one of our favorite places in the city (and a fabulous place for gay weddings), Radius Restaurant, on Tuesday, January 26, from 6-8pm.

Check out our fabulous invitation.

Please RSVP by emailing rsvp {at} 14stories dot com

If you're planning your gay wedding, it won't take long to realize that there are currently two wedding worlds on the internet - the straight wedding world (such as TheKnot.com and Brides.com) and the gay wedding world (such as GayWeddings.com, SoYoureEnGAYged.com).  And for now, there's nothing wrong with that.  Gay and lesbian couples should be able to trust their vendors and in many cases, that means visiting a gay wedding vendor directory.

For the past month and a half, I've been working with Kate Parker to make her new website, www.MyKateParkerWedding.com inclusive of all couples.  I've made some changes to their language and photos so that gay and straight couples will feel comfortable.  I've written some expert advice articles for the site so that engaged gay and lesbian couples who find themselves there will realize that they are welcome and that there is content just for them.  And you'll even see some real gay weddings up on the site.

This is all very significant for a number of reasons:

• The site itself is very cool, intuitively and smartly designed, very useful for couples.  It's a great resource for any couple that I'm proud to be associated with.
• MyKateParkerWedding.com is the first online wedding resource to seamlessly integrate both the straight and the gay wedding worlds.  The key word is integration (which requires a certain degree of fearlessness).
• Some vendors listed on MyKateParkerWedding.com have been trained by me on how to work with gay couples and others are coming to my upcoming workshop.

Check out the site - I think you'll really enjoy how intuitive it is to use and how useful its search features are.

In an ideal world, there won't need to be gay wedding websites and straight wedding websites, but we're just not there yet.  MyKateParkerWedding.com is the first site of its kind to even come close and I'm really proud of what they're doing.

After you get married, the state of Massachusetts and the cities don't send you a single thing in the mail.  It's all on file in some ginormous filing room somewhere.  As far as they're concerned, you're married and they don't need to remind you of that fact.

But you still need that certified copy.  Since many of our clients live in other states, sometime after the wedding, they have to send a self-addressed stamped envelope to City Hall with another form filled out, and a few weeks after that, they'll get the certified copy in the mail.  It's one more step couples have to go through.

Beginning in 2010, 14 Stories will obtain certified copies of your marriage license for you, saving you the time and hassle.  You won't even have to think about it anymore.  The certified copy will come in the mail about a month after your gay wedding.  Pretty easy stuff, so you can then go get your name changed or just frame it for posterity.

This is great news in our nation's capitol.  I'm particularly excited because I'd love to see some Congressmen and women invited to some gay weddings.  You know what happens when people go to gay weddings, right?  

Regardless of their feeling on gay marriage in the past, or their political views, they witness a legal marriage ceremony.  Not a commitment ceremony, not a civil union, but a legal marriage.  This is a big deal, still a historical big deal because there are so few places gay marriages are possible.  And those guests at gay weddings leave and say, "wow, that was the best wedding I've ever been to." Not just because it was a beautiful wedding but because it had this amazing sense of triumph and validation.  It was a real wedding and those guests will start talking about it.

If you are an engaged gay couple in the greater DC area, what should you do?  If you are planning a legal gay wedding in DC, I urge you to invite your Congressmen or woman to the wedding.  With any luck, they'll come and there will be this giant tide of change that will sweep through Congress and overturn that awful Defense of Marriage Act.  That may sound idealistic, I know, but that's how change happens.

With any luck - but it's got to start with you.  

Heck, even if you don't live in DC, you should consider inviting your Senators or Rep.  I'm now wishing we had.

Are you planning to get married in DC when it becomes legal?

The silver lining is that about a year and a half ago, Governor Paterson ordered NY to recognize the marriages of gay couples that were performed in states where gay marriage is legal.  Since then, I've helped a bunch of couples in Massachusetts and I know many more have gone right over the border to Connecticut.

For now, New York, this is not a bad situation to settle for, given that most other states won't recognize a gay marriage at all.  At least there's New England...

If you are from New York, has yesterday's defeat changed your wedding plans?  Did you expect the bill to pass?