So my tactic for dealing with the stress of the upcoming nuptials is to try to have as normal of a routine as possible. This means going to the office for a couple of days of work. This way my head stays clear during the day.
However, the problem arises when I get home because this is when I can start doing the bulk of what is on my task list for the wedding…and that can be overwhelming when there are last minute work deadlines to deal with, client calls, and then in the limited hours before sleep, trying to cram in some work for the wedding.
Anyways, as I sit right now in my office done with the few things that were on my to-do list for Tuesday (3 client conference calls, interviewing a job candidate, an editorial deadline for a review article, and a deadline for a research survey), I can finally take a deep breath. And that is when a mix of joy and panic sets in. I’m taking the days on either side of the wedding off, so this is my last day in the office without a ring on my finger. In fact, THIS IS MY LAST DAY IN THE OFFICE WITHOUT A RING ON MY FINGER!!! OMG, I’M GETTING MARRIED. IN THREE DAYS! And then the extra panic starts to set in–the “festivities” actually start on Thursday when the out-of-town guests start arriving in the morning. And THIS IS IN JUST TWO DAYS!!
And suddenly, everything that I had been procrastinating on because of work (haircut, ironing, food shopping, cleaning the fishtank, doing the windows, sweeping the patio, making a wedding disco playlist, WRITING VOWS, etc.) needs to get done in THE ONE DAY WE HAVE LEFT before the out-of-town family arrive en masse at the flat. ARRGH!
In between obsessively looking at the weather forecast (in not one or two, but on three different sources), I have found some moments of peace by taking time out to obsessively troll Gumtree ads for cute puppies for sale. These darlings below are two of our favorites so far.
So advice or anyone planning a wedding: Every time you get too stressed out from all the wedding work, just take a puppy break.
I’ve just spent a very pleasant morning working on signage for the venues. Nothing gets you into a more romantic mood than creating signs to tell people which toilet to use.
I’ve also been working on speeches for the day. Donny and I will be attempting to do two speeches together – which could be either end up an almighty mess or else be the best comedic double act since Morcambe & Wise (and I love that Donny will have no idea who they are). Speeches are actually my favourite part of being involved with a wedding. I’ve always loved public speaking and a best man’s speech is a brilliant opportunity to show off a bit. The grooms’ speech is generally just a long list of thankyous (which we are doing as there are so many people to thank) but we are also doing our own personal little spin. Again – could be brilliant, could be terrible. Either way – there’s wine to drink.
Like Donny, the stress and activity of the last few weeks is starting to take its toll a bit physically and I’ve been having real problems sleeping recently. It’s not that I’m dreading it, it’s just that there are so many details whirring round my head it’s really hard to switch off. Still, I’m off work this week so it’s an opportunity to chill out and reflect a little on the important things about getting married – such as the fact that I have forgotten to make the seat reservation signs…
So following on with Chris’s mini-blog update, here’s mine:
We’ve been quiet on here the last couple of weeks…but only because it has been a flurry of activity filled with daily discussions with different vendors, friends, and each other about lots and lots of details. I was doing OK until a couple of weeks ago, when it suddenly dawned on me one morning that we had only TWO WEEKS LEFT. I like to think of myself as being relatively calm and unflappable, but I underestimated how the anxiety would creep into my subconscious (via a series of strange vivid anxiety dreams), and the physical symptoms that also accompanied the mental ones. Having several work deadlines also didn’t help.
Nevertheless, there was some time for humour. I played a roguish trick on all my Facebook friends by posting a picture of someone else’s wedding at the Town Hall with the caption “What a lovely day it was”…which note doubt caused many brief moments of panic across London as friends double checked their invitations.
Anyways, I was glad that we had distractions such as the Olympics and friends visiting from the States over the past two weeks. And in fact, we have been attempting as much as possible to continue with our normal busy lives. For example, this past weekend, in addition to wedding planning, we had a Thai food cookery course in west London on Saturday, and an evening at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday to hear two youth wind orchestras.
So these final few days, now that we have just FOUR DAYS LEFT, will be filled with speech writing and vow writing, and a bit of cleaning before family and friends start descending on Islington en masse. And everyone, keep your fingers crossed for dry weather!
Those of you who have been following my part of the blog know that I have been dealing with a lot of conflicting feelings about my family and their reaction to the news that Chris and I are getting married. I genuinely did not know if my parents were happy about the situation or not. And they are probably as conflicted as I am.
On the one hand, I am certain that they were still holding on to a shred of hope that this “gay thing” was a passing fancy and that I would eventually find the right woman to settle down with. Getting married to another dude obviously dashes this last remaining hope to smithereens. (And never mind that I had previously been in a relationship with my ex for 14 years, which is still longer than the marriages of most of my school friends). If it is indeed a phase, it is one to be measured by decades rather than by seasons.
On the other hand, they have to feel at least a modicum of happiness that their younger son has found someone (whom they profess to also like) to spend the rest of his life with. The only thing is that the person whom I have fallen in love with is not of the gender that they had envisioned for me when I was growing up, and they still dont have the emotional wherewithal to embrace us for who I am, rather than who they think I should have been. So this modicum of happiness is likely to be bittersweet, at best.
So it was with a somewhat heavy heart that I landed in San Francisco last week. I had been in Philadelphia for a medical conference, and decided to tack on a few days in San Francisco for some client visits and to see my family. As a bonus, it was my brother’s 40th birthday and my older nephew’s 5th grade graduation, so there was plenty of opportunity for the whole family to get together.
One thing I noticed almost immediately was that the invitation we had sent to my parents was nowhere to be seen. I eventually found the invite and the save the date card, both tucked inside an old birthday day card inside a big pile of cards. The invite had obviously been hidden from sight, in case anyone visiting the house should see. I was not at all surprised by this (but I also could not help but feel a bit annoyed, since I knew that even wedding invites sent to them by distant acquaintances would often be displayed prominently on their dining table for months before and after the wedding was over.)
You see, I was already used to being marginalized in this way by my parents. For example, despite all those years that my ex and I were together, there were never any pictures of us on the fridge or any of the walls. However, the walls are festooned with pictures of my brother and his wife, and of their two kids. On the fridge there have only ever been two solitary pictures of me–one of me alone and one of me with my brother’s dog–and these have been up for well over 15 years. In this way, they could acknowledge that I existed, but also continue to fool themselves and others into thinking that I was not gay but merely single, as in the pictures.
And so, for the first couple of days, I did not mention the wedding. And neither did they. I had already written a lot about the Elephant in the Room, and they were still playing this game of avoidance. They had shown no interest at all in attending the wedding, or even talking about the wedding. So I needed some way to engage with them, and to connect with them because this game of avoidance is a zero-sum game, with no winners and only losers on all sides. Continued avoidance would just create further distance between us–an open wound which would eventually turn into a chasm or void. Life itself and the physical distance between us was hard enough. No family needs such additional obstacles.
My big opportunity to bond with my folks came from my suit, of all things. I had brought back my wedding suit for my dad to alter. He’s a master tailor with over 50 years of experience and it is not uncommon for me to bring back some “homework” for him to do in the form of trousers that need hemming, zippers that need repairing, or pockets that need re-lining. But for this suit, in addition to helping me save a few bucks, I thought it would be a good way to get him involved in the wedding, albeit indirectly. However, when I first brought out the suit for him to inspect, his first reaction was to ask, “Why on earth did you buy another suit? You already have so many suits that I have given you.” (Yes, that is how deep the power of avoidance and compartmentalization can be–he truly had no clue what the suit was for).
“It’s my wedding suit, I replied.” And then at last he understood. The change in his expression and demeanor were instant. And I finally saw a glimmer of hope that it was even possible for him to engage with me and with the wedding. He might not have the words to express his feelings, but his youngest son was going to get married, and he was determined to make sure that the suit fit me better than any suit he has ever worked with. After pinning and marking all the alterations that were needed with my outfit, I showed him a photo of Chris in his suit and in addition for chastising me for not having brought Chris’s suit for him to alter, he proceeded to document in detail all the changes that Chris’s outfit would need in order for his suit to also fit like a glove. We’ll be taking these instructions with us when we go back to the shop in London for Chris’ fitting.
My mom’s opportunity to participate came when I modeled the finished product for them. She came over for a look, and to fuss a bit over the outfit, and I could sense that she was proud of me and of the man I had become (although again, the words were lacking). She again lamented that the wedding was so far away, and that there was no way for her to get there without having to board a plane.
And finally, on my last morning in San Francisco, they presented me with a monetary wedding gift for me and Chris, with apologies about their inability to come to the wedding. Most importantly, however, the gift also came with verbal reassurance that they would be happy for us both, even though they wouldn’t be there in person. That was worth more than any amount of money. And so I was able to finally breathe a big sigh of relief, and to smile a bittersweet smile knowing how difficult of a journey it has been for them and for me to arrive at the very point we had just found ourselves at.
It’s now less than 100 days till the wedding. Crumbs! And as Donny and I count down to our big day, our minds turns to a countdown to another high profile event happening this summer.
That’s right – the new Batman movie!
I am, of course, lying. It’s the Olympics!
And it’s interesting to take stock of what the impact is of having a massive global spectacle happening up the road when you’re getting married.
For one thing, it’s already had a pretty dramatic effect on air-fares. It’s meant at least one good friend has been priced out of coming over from the US – and we imagine a few more will discover that as they take a look online. It’s gutting, but having the wedding during the summer (rather than during the school term once the Olympic hoo-ha has blown over) meant an entire family group from the US was able to re-jig their summer vacation to Europe in order to swing by beautiful Islington and join us for the wedding.
On the big day itself, Olympic activity will mean that there are a lot more people in London than usual, so tubes and buses will be lot more crowded. But other than travelling to and from the wedding, we will be on foot the whole day so we shouldn’t be too affected by that.
Aside from all the potential negatives, what I’m really hoping will be the main Olympic legacy as regards our big day is that our visitors from out of town will probably have never seen London so spruced up – and probably never will again! For a four week window this summer, the cones will go away, the scaffolding will come down, the workmen will stay in bed and London will look like an impressively shiny global city. It’s all an illusion of course, and as soon as the visitors go home the hoardings and diggers will be out again. But for that short window of time London will be a gleaming blemish-free backdrop to our wedding.
Given stories like this in the press currently, and all the ongoing hoo-ha about gay marriage, I thought it was about time I get my act together and write something about how my Christian beliefs work with the fact I am getting married to another man.
The first thing to say about Christianity is that it is – literally – a very broad church. It’s a label that is applied to all sorts of faith communities – from high-Catholic masses to small Quaker meetings – and what I talk about will only apply to a relatively small element of it. For my part, I grew up as part of a ‘charismatic new church’ (the cultural shorthand for which would be ‘happy-clappy’) in an environment where people regularly spoke in tongues, prophesied the future and prayed for healing. My church also did lots of good and practical things, such as lunchtime concerts for elderly people and going to Romania in the early 90s to bring plumbing and heating to orphanages, but in general the activity of my church was so focussed on the wider epic canvas of global revival that it rarely lowered itself into the down-and-dirty world of things like homosexuality.
My church was also part of the ‘evangelical’ stream of Christianity, which meant it was strongly bible focussed and believed that the bible is a handbook for everyday life. And so when I was in my early teens (and aware that I fancied boys rather than girls) and stumbled across this bit of Leviticus…
“Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.” Leviticus 18:22
… I found it bizarrely encouraging. You see, I was in a church that believed in healing, and as homosexuality was so clearly against the will of God all I needed to do was keep quiet and pray hard enough and eventually God would heal me. Brilliant! So I never told anyone about what I was feeling at the time, and there was never any explicit condemnation from the front of the church, so I was actually shielded in a lot of ways from the worst that evangelical Christianity could have thrown at me. I firmly believe that had I told my church leaders in my teens what I was feeling, and they had tried to ‘heal’ me, it would have been a disaster and a one-way ticket to the loony-bin. Looks like my chronic fear of rejection was good for something after all!
It wasn’t until I was 24 that I decided to actively figure out what being gay meant for me as a Christian. I read a ton of books about what the bible has to say about homosexuality and came to the conclusion that – well – the bible has precisely nothing to say about homosexuality. On one hand you’ve got a load of ancient sacramental purification laws from the Old Testament, and anyone really enforcing those needs to take a long hard look at themselves, as well as changing their eating habits and ditching half their wardrobe (thank you President Bartlett). Then on the other hand you’ve got a collection of letters written two thousand years ago to a group of churches in the eastern Mediterranean. These letters by Paul do talk about how “homosexual offenders” as well as other miscreants (hello “drunkards”) will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6 v9-10). But what I found in my research was that the Greek word now translated as “homosexual offenders” (‘arsenokoitai’ – fact fans) is still hotly debated as to what it means.
I was faced with a choice. Did I choose to base my entire life around a translation issue from a 2,000 year old letter just in case it turns out that one particular group of biblical scholars have got it right? Frankly, that just seemed bizarre to me. And still does. So I decided to play it by ear. I would still live my life according to the important bits of Christianity (you know: the stuff about loving other people, and trying to make the world a better place) but I would also start dating boys. I figured that if the two were completely incompatible it would soon become obvious. But 11 years later I still reckon I’m on the right track.
But many other vocal Christians out there appear to believe differently. Why? Well, I suspect it’s because they’ve grown up in a culture where homosexuality is seen as a bit ‘icky’, and because a few passages of the bible chime with their own personal feelings of ‘ickiness’, they have no problem believing that it is biblical truth, and therefore current and relevant. What this means is that if anyone comes along to challenge the evangelical church’s negative stance on homosexuality, this challenge becomes interpreted as an attack on biblical truth, and consequently becomes an attack on the entire belief structure. This goes some way to explaining the wide-ranging popularity of the ‘Coalition for Marriage’s online petition against gay marriage. The Coalition for Marriage have framed the argument for gay marriage as an attack on faith itself, not just a criticism of one specific inequality.
I must admit that for many different reasons, my sexuality among them, I’m not regularly attending any church at the moment. But I still would call myself a Christian and still spend a lot of time with other Christians. And the Christians I choose to spend time with are the ones understand that the bible says much more about including and loving everyone than it does about being gay. I’ve been totally accepted and encouraged by most of my Christian friends, and they’ve also welcomed Donny as well. I think there probably have been a few people who have a problem with me living openly as gay, but I guess they were the ones who stopped sending me Christmas cards, or have defriended me on Facebook. I can live with that.
But I do recognise this has created a tension for a few of my Christian friends. On the one hand they absolutely want to stay friends, but on the other hand there are these institutions they have always respected telling them that gay marriage is an attack on core Christian values. This leads to an unhealthy schizophrenia – the person who I sit down and have a natter with over a coffee is the same person who worries that coming to my wedding is against their beliefs. It’s unhealthy – and it’s really terrible of groups like the Coalition for Marriage and the ‘Core Issues Trust’ (who were behind the bus adverts) to put people in the position where they feel forced to choose between their gay friends and their beliefs.
It has been both interesting and rewarding to see that this blog has followers, and that it is starting to generate some interest outside of the circle of friends and family that we originally created this for. We wanted this blog in part to record our memories as we embark on this journey of putting on a wedding, but also to serve as a resource. Interestingly, the blog has become a strange cross roads of different friends who read different bits and pieces for different reasons.
One ongoing thread involves my family, who can’t quite get to grips with what it means to embrace their gay son, and all the trappings that come with having to once again deal with issues that had been hidden under a thin veil of begrudging acceptance…but which have now been stirred by the upcoming nuptials. And interwoven with my saga are Chris’s thoughts about being both gay and Christian, and how the search for acceptance among family, friends, and communities has impacted his life. Then of course there are the practicalities of actually putting on the wedding, and our own feelings (and friends’ insights) about what is tradition, what is convention, and what it means to buy into the wedding industry as opposed to doing our own thing, or at least our vision/interpretation of what would be viewed as conventional and traditional, and trying to do things on a budget. (In essence, we are the most offbeat of Offbeat Brides, especially since we are two dudes).
But beneath all of these interwoven threads that form the tapestry of our blog and our lives, is our underlying desire to be both out and proud, and to potentially be a resource for other couples (both gay and straight) who have found themselves in similar situations–however tangential–or those who may be undergoing journeys similar to what we have dealt with in our past. And that’s why it brings me great joy to see that the interest in this blog, and in our wedding, is gaining some traction beyond just our circle of friends and family.
The first outside inquiry was from a community journalism student who wrote this nice story for Islington Now, an online local news website. And the title of the piece was “A gay wedding story starts in Islington”. And just this week, another journalist, who works for the weekly printed Islington Gazette will be interviewing us for a story on the ongoing gay marriage debate which has been causing some rifts within the conservative Tory party. And furthermore, a friend of mine who is studying for a degree in psychology in California has decided to interview us as a case study for his course.
And who knows what additional traction our story will have? But that is why it is important for all of us who are otherwise marginalized by society (and yes, I think as a gay male Chinese-American expat looking to get married to a gay white male Brit from a conservative Christian background, we do qualify as forming part of the margin of society-although there are of course many more who are even more marginalized) to stand and be counted. Some day, it is our hope that true marriage equality will happen so that gays and lesbians in all countries will be able to marry exactly as heterosexual couples–both in name and with the full rights of marriage. But in the meantime, until that occurs, we have no choice but to settle for second best. But we do demand to at least be counted. Our gay wedding story does indeed start in Islington (well technically, on the Isle of Wight where Chris and I first met)–but we certainly hope that the story will extend far beyond the borders of Islington!
If you have been following this blog for any length of time you will know Donny and I are trying to do things a bit differently with this wedding. Our aim is strip away as much of the meaningless wedding flotsam as we can, and do an event which focusses purely on the elements that are important and meaningful to us.
So we won’t be having lots of flowers, there won’t be a big fruit cake and there will be a significant absence of wedding favours on the table. These are things we can live without. But when Donny asked if we wanted bother with wedding rings, I was really surprised.
I had just assumed us having wedding rings was a given. You see, I like the symbolism of a wedding ring – I like that it symbolises that we belong to each other. I also really like the fact that it is probably the only physical thing that we take from the wedding event into the day-to-day reality of our married life.
Having said all that, I guess the nature of what we are trying to do with the wedding means we need to challenge everything – even the elements I personally like. Donny’s point is that historically in heterosexual Christian marriage the ring would be worn by the bride as a symbol of her belonging to her groom – to represent sort of transfer of property. Much in the same way a pig or bull might have a ring through the end of its nose. It’s only much more recently in history that the groom started also wearing a ring. We don’t want to ‘own’ each other, so why would we wear something that has this strong historical connotation?
So the question is: do we reject a symbol that represents the heterosexual norms of marriage so strongly, or do we seek to take that symbol and somehow redeem it representing something much more progressive and meaningful for us?
So I have been rather quiet on this blog lately. In part, I have really not had much to say. The situation with my family had not changed in the past month–week after week I held my breath but no questions about the wedding every came about. And we were still tying up loose ends with the venues, so there wasn’t much to report there. And frankly, I was getting tired of planning the wedding and talking about the wedding. It seemed for a while that every weekend activity was centered around the wedding, every conversation was about the wedding, and every time I saw friends (including some that I see on a weekly basis), they asked about the wedding. So I decided to take a break from it all and enjoy some downtime from the planning and from the blog.
But a lot has happened in the month since I last wrote in this blog. We now have all four venues finally nailed down. Town hall, drinks reception, lunch, and then the pub. So now that the macro-level arrangements have been taken care of, and the dates are set, it is only the details that remain to be filled out–and we still have 5 months to do so. (Yes, I know those 5 months sound like a lot, but they will pass really quickly!)
But most importantly, my brother just informed us that he is coming to the wedding! It will be his first visit to London and I am excited to be able to see him on this side of the pond. Unfortunately summertime school schedules and challenges surrounding food allergies and travel for my youngest nephew means that my sister-in-law and two nephews will not be able to come, but I am sure they will be here in spirit.
And it was my brother’s decision to come to the wedding that has had the further consequence of causing my mom to finally mention The Elephant In The Room during my recent conversation with her. This was a huge relief for me, as I was going crazy waiting and was going to just bring it up myself (and thereby breaking the promise I made to myself to wait it out). He had just informed her the previous weekend that he was going to be making the trip–and that in turn was the catalyst that finally thawed the ice.
You see, it turns out that the wedding had become compartmentalized for various reasons. Compartmentalization is something that I also do very well (and I have an amazing capacity for that, according to my old therapist)–but I cannot even begin to fathom the full complexity of what goes through my mother’s mind. I had thought her reticence was due to a sense of shame and her not wanting to acknowledge something publicly that she perceived as something to be hidden away. But I now think that a major part of that reticence was my mom’s reluctance to acknowledge that I’ve grown up and am no longer her baby.
Marriage has that effect on people–it’s one of life’s milestones that most people experience and can relate to. Along with moving out of the house, going to uni, getting one’s first full-time job, and having one’s first child–getting married is one of the major ways that people level-up. And yes, in the conversation, she did refer to the event as a wedding (in Chinese, of course)–and there might not even be any alternative names for it (I wouldn’t even know where to start with defining “civil partnership” in Chinese). But our upcoming wedding has had a most profound effect on my family. It tells them that my relationship with Chris is real, and is lasting, permanent, and lifechanging. Interestingly, my last relationship, which lasted 14 years and was a marriage for all intents and purposes, never quite had this level of gravitas in my family’s eyes, perhaps in part because we never formally got hitched. (And this is another reason why having a dual system of “civil partnerships” and “marriages” is inherently un-equal). Being in a committed same-sex relationship is one thing–but being married is another thing altogether.
I’m still thinking about the details of my conversation with my mom, and I may write about it later. But I do need to thank my brother for being the catalyst that broke the ice, and in advance, for coming to the wedding. And my new promise to myself is to try to include my folks in the wedding discussions as much as possible, now that the impasse has been passed. In fact, they may even get sick of how much I will talk to them about the wedding. 8)
Yesterday, a Facebook friend of mine posted a link to the ‘Coalition for Marriage’, an organisation which is campaigning to keep the institution of marriage as purely a heterosexual affair. He was encouraging his Facebook contacts to sign a petition on the site, and when he was challenged about why he was doing this, he explained that it was because it was his religious view that the definition of marriage should be kept restricted to only being between a man and a woman.
This actually made my blood properly boil. Not only is this guy fully aware that many of his friends have gay friends and family members who are in committed relationships, but also (as he keeps mentioning on his status updates) he’s getting married later this year and so what he’s basically saying to me (and people like me) is ‘I get to call it a marriage, but you don’t’.
My response to this was to post a fairly angry response and then defriend him, but sadly Facebook doesn’t support the ability to flounce off in this manner, as when you defriend someone, your posts get hidden. If you ask me, that’s a terrible design flaw. Anyway, for the record, here is roughly what I posted:
“I don’t know whether you know this but I’m getting married later this year! To a man! Surprise! So although this is goodbye, I hope you’ll do some soul-searching and think about why you’d want to deny me the thing that you are clearly so looking forward to.”
Now, I know it’s true that Donny and I are not getting technically married – we are entering into a civil partnership and that’s marvellous – but I don’t see why we can’t call it a marriage, and use that word in all the invites and along the top of this very website. In my mind, what we are doing is absolutely a marriage and I’m not going to have a bunch of social conservatives telling me otherwise. It’s how Donny and I see it, and surely that’s the only thing that matters.
For me personally, whether we get legally married or civilly-partnered is neither here nor there, but it is incredibly important to lots of my friends who belive very strongly in the institution of marriage, but just aren’t wired in a way that allows them to currently participate in it. So I don’t see how extending the institution of marriage to include same-sex couples is going to somehow cause difficulties for society and lead to polygamy – there is a big difference between wanting to marry one person and wanting to marry three people, whatever their gender. And is telling children that same-sex couples exist and can get married really going to be such a terrible thing?
It’s just prejudice – pure and simple. Don’t dress it up as tradition, don’t dress it up as common sense and, above all, don’t dress it up as faith.
Given 
