Anniversary Special

[pantryslut]

As many of you know, Steven and I eloped:

"Culturally, we’re conditioned to expect some kind of traumatic transition between single life and married life in order to accord marriage a special status and maintain that married people were changed by marriage. It used to be that just leaving your parents’ home and setting up as an “adult” was scary enough. Now, with people leaving the nest and moving in with their unmarried partners all the time, the wedding has taken on greater significance as a big source of drama that everyone has to get through in order to become a Married Person. There’s a sense that people who have easy weddings have cheated, somehow, because they get the status of being married without having gone through all the Drama. They might as well just be living in sin!"

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/05/10/a-look-into-the-bridal-industrial-complex/

Comments

[kiya]

I have the rather odd perspective of someone who eloped who is helping her other primary partner plan his wedding, which is being interesting in the 'attempts to keep it low-drama' sense. (Including things like 'finding a venue which is sufficiently sized to give a socially acceptable reason to not invite the hordes of cousins that aren't actually interacted with by the to-be-married but who assume they'll be invited anyway'.)

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

Oh, lordy, I read that last week, and quaked with fear. Both of my sisters-in-law went Bridezilla to various degrees, my sister eloped with her first husband, but I wonder what she would do if she remarried..

[innerdoggie.livejournal.com]

We did, too. We both wanted to minimize change, and we're too shy to deal with being the center of attention. Plus we have big extended families and if you invite one family member you have to invite all of them and pretty soon you have 400 people.

This way, they could all be a little bit miffed at us for not inviting them, instead of having some really really upset for not being invited when other ones were.

And if we ended up immediately freaking out and divorcing, it would be less embarrassing if we hadn't invited everybody.

There might be something to the anthropology point that people need trauma to mark crossing into a new status. I sure don't need it!

I think my mother got *too* much change at once. In a two-week period, she graduated from school, moved, married, and started a job. That must have been overwhelming. At least she didn't give birth to me in that same time-period. (I showed up 15 months later.)

Nowadays people can have trauma over the huge credit card debt they've gotten themselves into. :-)

[goodbadgirl.livejournal.com]

Congratulations on your anniversary! Many smooches.....xoxoxox

[redbird]

I didn't exactly elope, because in a careless moment years earlier I'd told my mother that if I ever married cattitude she'd be there. (Beware of promises that seem easy.)

We went down to City Hall with a total of three relatives and four other friends.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Steven and I were happily surprised to discover that Illinois requires no witnesses, so it was just us and the judge.

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

We didn't elope, but you know about us: Queers Can't Elope, so we had to do the stand-up thang. And yeah, invite all the same-relatedness-level cousins, and be snubbed by some of them, and put up with my stepfather telling us that we shouldn't violate the sancitity of the blahblah (which we didn't on account of we got married under a chuppah, not with his stupid catholic shit).

Overall, things came out well, and it gave me the excuse I needed to never talk to my stepfather again. Silver linings, eh?

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

You could have run down to City Hall and eloped! That counts, right?

[genderfur.livejournal.com]

*g*

Sorry, now I'm going to actually answer you seriously:

a. It was a terrible weekend for us. Embarrassing to admit, but true. We were getting ready for a craft show and there was No Fucking Way.
b. Did it count for people from outside the county, anyway? I can't remember.
c. Standing in that long line - ugh.
d. Besides, did that really count as "eloping"? *g*
e. We'd already done our stand-up three years previously. As well as at least three private events previously. And we *are* registered domestic partners with the State, so as of this year we're practically not second-class citizens anymore!

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about "b," too. I can't remember either.