This week, I’ve been sleeping in.*
I’ve been away from my parents’ house and cat sitting for my best friend/ex-partner and even though the cat is very demanding with regard to feeding times and immediate litter box cleanings I’ve largely been able to actually sleep this week, in contrast to the rampant insomnia and “oh, I like waking up at 4 a.m., I have so much more time for exercise and journalling and showering and worrying I mean breakfast” that have characterized the past few months. (Also I don’t feel like openly weeping all the time any more which is nice but I am still crying an amount that for me is significantly higher than average, what’s up with that.)
Anyway for reasons about to be seen I am finally immersed in making this wedding happen for real and it feels great. I hate all talk and no action, so doing stuff and moving on and no longer having it sit in the back of my brain as something that might happen but wasn’t for sure yet, not really, feels amazing.
* Until all of 7:30 a.m. Progress!
My Lesbian Immigration Wedding Feelings, Part 5
24.2. Shannon told her parents.
After the visa, the only thing in the way of jumping in to real, solid plans instead of just thinking about what those plans were almost certainly probably hopefully going to be was Shannon telling her parents the wedding date and making sure they’re free. (Which didn’t happen before the visa, mostly just in case.) And now they know! And they’re free! And her brother is also free! And a grandma strategy is being considered! And now it feels like we can finally act on things instead of thinking about all the things we need to act on over and over and that’s pretty cool but also pressing. (The second and final wedding magazine I purchased was The Knot, which had a list informing me I am 12 months late on some of the stuff I’m going to get to next week.)
11.2. The photographer is locked.
We found and booked a photographer who’s letting us cobble together our own package (basically a hybrid of her wedding and elopement packages because we are so tiny) and Shannon’s meeting her in person this week to talk about our photography dreams. (Also in the meantime we need to come up with some photography dreams.)
9.2. Official officiant update.
She’s getting ordained on the internet (this is totally legal in California; apparently it’s less legal elsewhere and depends on where you are) and we are talking about scripts now and ahh I love her so much.
25. We made a registry.
I feel weird about having a registry, in that on some level it feels really indulgent to say to family and friends, “Here are some nice things you could buy us if you wanted,” but, in my family at least, not having one seemed like it was going to be a bigger issue than having one and as long as everyone knows it is in no way obligatory then I guess it’s okay. We used Zola, because it let us add both household stuff and honeymoon stuff, looks pretty and accepts payments from countries outside the States.
26. I guess invitations are a thing.
Guess we should send these soon. By “these” I really mean “the email that will function as the invitation because it’s good to give people something written down but neither of us could get it up for an actual paper situation.”
27. How will the day run?
A few questions I am grappling with:
We are getting access to the place that morning and will need to set it up ourselves then/before a shower. I think we might do brunch with a few people attending who know each other that day, but that seems like it might be ambitious. We were also talking about lunch with just us at Knuckle & Claw, a lesbian-owned lobster roll place that is our “a really good thing happened let’s celebrate with food” place and where Shannon is somehow on a first-name basis with most of the staff because she’s like that, and to which we might bring the photographer. But also it feels weird to bring a photographer, maybe. I want to be able to go there and be relaxed and not self-conscious. Then we have a few hours somewhere in there for ahem taking a nap and getting ready and I guess any “around LA” photos? “Photographers: how do they work” is a whole other feeling/research topic.
Is it weird (or “too weird”) to want everyone to hang out for an hour or two with drinks and food before the actual ceremony? We’re having dinner after with all the same people, but the restaurant is loud and dark (read: “a public area of a restaurant on Saturday night”), and my hearing isn’t great so I depend on lip-reading when there’s lots of background noise, but my eyesight is awful in the dark and so I’m just going to miss almost any conversation that doesn’t happen with the people directly next to or across from me. I want to be able to actually talk to and see people who came, especially those who travelled to be there, but will people get bored or impatient standing around for an hour or two before the ceremony?
It sounds romantic to get married at sunset, but sunset is at 7:40 and dinner is at 8:30 and between them we also have to clean up. Ideally we would also do any sort of toast anyone might want to give, because the restaurant is public and I won’t be able to hear anything, but timing the moment we get married with sunset might have to not happen. (UPDATE: sunset that day is actually 7:15, I was looking at the times for Canada, #solved.)
How do we get people to go to places at the right time? Is there a good way to transition from “now we are standing around chatting” to “now we are getting married” to “now we are cleaning up” to “now we are going to dinner”? Programs are not an ideal option, because blah. Is saying the timeline in the invitation email enough? Should someone be in charge of bossing people around/telling people where to go and just sort of projecting her voice and hoping it’s effective? (Me, this person would probably be me.)
28. How will the ceremony run?
What does this look like? I am reading through a pile of example scripts but, *sips bourbon, opens browser.*
29. Dinner changed a little.
The restaurant changed its large dinner format and pricing plan just enough. We were hoping to have a few people we hadn’t been sure we could fit, and now we’re not.
30. It’s happening in semi-public and I keep feeling weird about that.
So the ceremony/pre-ceremony reception is happening in a semi-public place I am being purposefully vague about because it is a semi-public place and the internet already knows the date and time. Is there a good way to stop random strangers from “attending” via standing right outside the little closed off area we’ll have (Shannon has already vetoed my “curtain hanging between two hedges” idea) or should I just embrace it and maybe appoint a dad or brother or stern grandmother to keep people from actually coming in? As a viewer I think it’d be a pretty cool night if I stumbled across a hopefully adorable lesbian wedding on a neighborhood stroll but as a subject I’m not keen on it but maybe I should just not care.
31. The wedding playlist.
Needs so much work.
5.2. I’m researching US money things for real now.
What bank do you guys use? There was a video a few years back that featured Canadians describing bankers as trustworthy and kind and patient and Americans describing bankers as evil and scheming and devious and it’s safe to say I never considered anything beyond interest rates in banking before, do I need to now?
I’m also checking the exchange rate three times a day. It does not look good.
32. I BOOKED MY TICKET.
!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway now I have exactly two weeks to wrap up Canada, more or less, holy shit?
Feelings? Advice? Wedding questions? Immigration questions? Email our team of married/getting married/immigrating/immigrated humans at youneedhelp @ autostraddle dot com or leave a question/feeling in the comments!
