So You're EnGAYged, a LGBT wedding blog

This seems so long ago now! Finding the dress stirred up all kinds of weird feelings (good and bad) and now as I "lay it to rest" their beginning to surface again...

When I bought my dress, I thought maybe I would resell it, or donate it, or keep it in my closet to wear around the house when I needed a little pick-me-up. I knew you could have it preserved so that it wouldn’t yellow or deteriorate at all, but I didn’t see what I would need to really preserve it for. As much as I liked it, it’s not like I had plans to wear it for another occasion. I didn’t have any illusions that a future child of mine would want to wear it if they got married, and I didn’t feel the need to have it in perfect condition 30… 50… 70 years from now. At most, I figured I’d get it cleaned and then most likely just stick it in the back of the closet and forget about it till the next time we moved, at which point I’d have an “Awww…” moment when I pulled it out and then start worrying about how I was supposed to pack it.

Well, now I don’t have to worry about packing it for our next move, because it is conveniently entombed in it’s very own Dress Coffin!

(more…)

Now that my partner Dré has blogged several times, we figured it was time for me to throw my own voice out into the SYE world.

So, here’s my first post! I’m Em, Dré’s partner for 3-plus years. As many of you know, we’re getting married on 9/10/11. Well, we’re not actually getting legally married then, but we’re throwing ourselves a big commitment ceremony and party, and we’re calling it a marriage even though we won’t have the paperwork signed until after Dré’s transition.

I’ve been a big SYE fan for a while, and have been reading the blog pretty much since we got engaged in May 2009. I’m thrilled to be blogging, and to have found the fantastic Kelly Prizel through the site. I am so excited that she’s going to photograph us!

Our wedding planning has been going great, and we’ve already booked the venue (Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, MD), the musician (our good friend Nancy Eddy), the caterer (Corcoran Caterers) and our photographer (Kelly Prizel, of course!). (We’ll talk about the details about what went into finding and deciding on these in later posts).

The only real “kink” (if you can even call it that) has been Dré’s decision to transition. Which, quite honestly, has been an amazing process that I am so grateful for. As Dré has blogged about, we couldn’t decide at first whether we should wait until after the wedding for him to transition. But now that we have decided to get married with him identifying as male, I can hardly believe we even thought about doing it any other way!

My girlfriend and I have been dating for close to 9 months. It was actually our 9 month anniversary yesterday. It still blows my mind at times because we have gone off without a hitch so far. Even still, I’m perfectly fine with being engayged to her. I am not sure why I’m so calm about it and why I wanted to propose so early in our relationship but I know myself well enough to realize that 9 months from now, 2 years from now – I will feel the same.

Even though I am known to be flighty, being with her is what I want. I have looked up various sites online about how long one should wait before proposing and a lot of sites say you should wait at least a year. Of course, public opinion does vary whereas some say you should get married when you are ready whether that is 2 months, 2 years or 10 – it is really up to that individual couple. Even though by most of the consensus, a year should be the benchmark.

So, in their eyes, I am falling quite short but you know, I’m fine with it. She is the one I want to be with and I have wrestled with the idea of proposing for awhile. I don’t see it as impulsive, I have talked it over with more than one individual and deep down it just feels right to me. If I proposed during the second month of our courtship I would have understood but our relationship has grown into something that is beyond amazing for the both of us. She and I have weathered the storm together and we are stronger because of it. And honestly, we basically share our lives together – minus sharing a bank account – which, is something that still makes me slightly nervous. Even still, I’m willing to work through all my anxieties when it comes to couplehood because of her and what our relationship means to me. Which says a lot because I am one tough cookie but she accepts that about me which makes me love her that much more.

I love her so much. I can’t even see straight (but I’m not straight, so I guess that is okay – haha), I love her that much. And even though, we come from family backgrounds where marriage was synonymous with being miserable and angry, we both have realized that we don’t want to be a carbon copy of our relatives, we don’t want to curtail to roles of society of what marriage is supposed to stand for because we both want to define love and marriage in our own way.

I’m not sure why we as humans feel the need to put a time line on something – I’m guilty of this as well – maybe because it makes it easy for us to feel somewhat in control of our lives and of our surroundings. With my introduction post, I noticed that I’m not the only one out there who has had a short courtship and that really was exciting to hear! In fact, I loved hearing about it because feeling like this was something that took me by surprise. I am not used to feeling so impulsive when it comes to my heart; I’m not used to feeling so secure with allowing someone else to have it so soon – so to everyone who chimed in, I say, “Thank You” – you really brightened up my day.

I just recently shared my story about coming out at work, but what makes it even happier is what happened a few weeks later. The same friend that wanted to involve everyone in the office, and inevitably outed me (with my permission of course), actually had a bigger plan in the works.

A few days before our courthouse ceremony, one of my fellow administrators asked if I could take a look at a printer upstairs that was having problems, which is not out of the ordinary at all. But as I went upstairs and turned the corner, I realized something was up. I guess I could almost sense the energy and excitement because as I looked into the dark conference room, at least 30 of my coworkers were there yelling “SURPRISE!”

They fitted me with a bridal tiara and poured me some champagne. My friend shared a toast and upon hearing the words “Congratulations Rose and Nicole” in a large group of people like that, I was overcome with emotion. I think I spent most of the time standing in one place, shaking and smiling.  I just never expected to feel so much acceptance and happiness towards something that I was so excited about. I had been bottling up so much excitement about our big day that I could finally release at that moment. Rose and I have had a fantastic romance, but it has been anything but typical. We never held expectations for engagement parties or showers … so this was an incredible surprise.
(more…)