But I did *get* married

Some people seem to think I never had a wedding ceremony. I did. It's just that L'Ailee and I had to have it in a state neither of us, to say nothing of our friends and relatives, had never even visited in order to make it semi-legal. It upset us both a bit, that we couldn't have our wedding in any familiar place and have it mean something in the eyes of the law. L'Ailee insisted right from the beginning, though, that she would never have one of those "expensive pretend weddings", a/k/a a commitment ceremony. And I could see her point. We felt triple-ripple brilliant when NYC didn't legalize SSM in their own borders, but did accept SSMs contracted where they are legal.

It could be better. My brother could have his wedding in a Florida park that was special to him. My cousin and L'Ailee's cousin can marry near her college. They don't have to think about this crap, and it feels so unfair.

It could be worse. There are abused child brides in Afghanistan and arranged marriages in India and the Middle East. And we did, after all, get married somewhere. We couldn't always do that.

There is a thread at the Message Board of Love about funniest things that happened at our weddings. The gender makeup of mine was different from most, but the meaning was the same to me, so I shared mine. I'll share them here, too. ("BC" means "Beloved Consort." All boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, and wives are BCs unless they are PITAs--Pains In The Ass.)

We had sort of a New Year's Eve party that broke out into a wedding for a few minutes. My BC's best friend blew an airhorn, and her uncle jumped a mile! Also, my BC was too emotionally overcome to speak, and after my vows, simply kissed me like we were going off to war. The priest joked, "I take that as a yes!"

The thing we'll never forget, though, is how the nice ladies who ran the bed and breakfast we stayed at and had our ceremony at reacted. They were so very *not* prepared for my passing up their premium coffee for Diet Pepsi in the morning, my taking over the kitchen, L'Ailee having a different hairstyle every time they saw her, my brother and his wife slopping sugar all over each other in the lobby, my brother asking a bazillion technical questions about the audio in their "great room" (he was the DJ), everyone's Southern and Russian accents, and lastly, L'Ailee's best friend showing up in a T-shirt that said "I'm the one you gotta blow to get a drink around here."