Our Invisible Relationship
The wedding story that reminds us gay still isn’t okay
We got married in 2016 just two years after the UK government made it legal. We chose to have quite a traditional wedding in a country house and for most guests, it was the first time they experienced a ‘gay wedding’ so there were lots of questions to answer:
Who will walk down the aisle?
Will you wear dresses or suits?
Who will do the speeches?
Will you have two sets of bridesmaids?
You’re having a BEST MAN!?
It was exciting to reinvent what a wedding should look like and turned into the best weekend of my life, surrounded by the love and support of those closest to us. But I’m here to tell the tale of the often hilarious challenges of negotiating marriage when you’re not heterosexual. So here’s my TOP 5 gay wedding bloopers:
- The heterosexual adverts
From the moment we started exploring the wedding process we were bombarded with adverts and promotions. It made us quickly realise that weddings weren’t for us. They’re built and rebuilt for white, heterosexual couples. But, the invisibility of our relationship didn’t stop some us having a giggle at some of them…
2. The wedding card from our insurance company
I rang our supplier to change our details. The chap on the phone asked in reference to our joint account, ‘are you sisters? best friends?’ I politely said ‘no, we’re about to get married.’ He was aghast and blundered through the next 10-minutes trying to overcome his embarrassment. Then, a few days later this arrived in the post…
I’ll just leave you to mull that over.
2. The missing groom
We were excited to take all the gents from our wedding party suit fitting. They all visited our small town for the occasion. When we arrived, already nervous about having to ‘come out’ for the 200th time in a matter of weeks, they asked the groom’s name. Charlotte and I looked at each other with a smirk and said, ‘oh, there is no groom, we’re marrying each other.’ All our family and friends stood watching as the chaos unfolded. The woman stuttered, ‘okay, well I need a groom’s name to put on your account.’ Stunned into silence we responded with nervous rage, ‘well there isn’t one. Just put my name’
Her response…‘hmmm, maybe it’s best if we put the father of the bride’s name?’
3. The man with tiny fingers
We ordered our wedding rings from a local high-street jewellers. Simple plain gold bands, both in the same ring size. When I arrived to collect them the woman serving me asked, ‘special occasion?’… ‘I’m getting married in a couple of weeks!’… ‘Congratulations, where are you getting married?’…
The conversation continued as she took the rings out of the box to check them over. Mid-flow she paused before saying with naive shock and worry, ‘your finance must have very small fingers’… the poor man.
4. The forms
We decided to get our wedding video through a ‘make your own’ company. They send you the cameras and your family and friends film the day. You send it back to be edited afterwards. I started filling in the online form for the final edit and quickly stumbled upon a big problem.
Choose the songs for the groom getting ready
Choose the songs for the bride getting ready
Choose the songs for the bride walking down the aisle
Choose the songs for the groom’s speech
You get the drift. Bugger. I had to write ‘the one with red hair’ or the ‘one with brown’ hair in all my answers. Aside from the obvious challenges the video was edited based on a traditional wedding format. They didn’t budge from their tradition to meet the needs of a gay couple so we ended up with a hodge-podge video attempting to mould our day into the heterosexual stereotype. Their website is overwhelming straight, white, middle-class couples, so what did I expect eh?
5. The blind man
I took a wedding photograph into a local framing shop. When I arrived the chap took the image and rolled it out on the counter. We both paused and looked down at the photograph of Charlotte and I on our wedding day, holding a gay pride flag. I was smiling with pride. He looked at me and said, ‘sisters?’
I had to take a deep breath to stop myself from laughing (or crying) before I calmly responded, ‘that’s me and my wife on our wedding day.”
There you have it! Top 5 wedding bloopers. Living as a gay couple is to live an invisible life. People assume some crazy things before they reach the reality, think small fingered men. They assume Charlotte is my sister more often than my wife. They assume I’m married to a man nearly every day. We have to ‘come out’ all over the show, making us vulnerable to abuse or ridicule, or other people’s embarrassment and shame, which we are often left to remedy. A friend once told me, ‘straight people are always coming out, they talk about their husband or boyfriend with ease, within a matter of moments.’ It’s the ease we’re missing. You have to stay alert, gauging the reaction before you make the leap to say ‘wife’ rather than ‘partner’. And the moment is always followed by the thought, ‘am I talking about being gay too much?’
We make choices every day about public displays of affection, particularly around groups of men. Often choosing to keep our distance from each other to stay safe. We’ve learnt to self-protect by staying in safe circles full of kind, accepting people. We’re exceptionally lucky to have the right to exist together, let alone marry. The prejudice we experience is nothing compared to the threat to life many face because of who they love. Yet, the subtle prejudice and overt assumptions make life difficult and stunt our ability to be seen and understood as a couple.
On our wedding day, we thanked the generations of LGBT folk who had fought for our rights and whose lives made our marriage possible. There have always been people who don’t fit in the box, difference frightens us but there’s nothing to be afraid of. We’re all human beings with hearts and minds, just trying to get by— listen, seek to understand and stay open to difference. This simple act makes the very box that confines us invisible, leaving our rich, unique and complex lives free to be seen and understood.
